N’Kosi Oates, Ph.D.
Instruction Librarian and Curator for Black Arts and Culture, Assistant Professor
Departments: Academic Engagement, Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections, Special Collections
About me
As the Instruction Librarian and Curator for Black Arts and Culture, N’Kosi Oates, Ph.D. co-manages the instruction program within Special Collections while also leading the collection development in Black Arts and Culture acquisitions. N’Kosi is a cultural and social historian of nineteenth and twentieth century America.
Education: BA (Communication and Political Science) University of Delaware, MA (Religion) Yale University, Ph.D. (Africana Studies) Brown University.
About Academic Engagement
Academic Engagement is a new, public-facing division of the Libraries, under formation now. Departments include Library and Information Services, the Music Library, Research & Education Services, and Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections, which includes Digital Projects and Special Collections.
About Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections
We partner across JMU and in the surrounding communities to create, collect, steward, and imaginatively share unique collections in a variety of media types. We leverage the latest technologies and best practices in digital scholarship to support the exploration and understanding of our shared cultural heritage. Our expertise includes rare books, manuscripts, archives, digital archives, primary source instruction, preservation, conservation, digitization, digital pedagogy, and digital and immersive projects. The Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections (DSDC) department combines the Digital Projects and Special Collections teams.
About Special Collections
We collect, steward, and preserve materials that document the Central Shenandoah Valley as well as the institutional history of James Madison University. Special Collections also serves as the Libraries’ repository for rare and unique materials. The Preservation office within Special Collections provides book and paper conservation for rare and archival collections as well as book repair for the Libraries’ circulating collections.
Our team works to support teaching and scholarship with primary source materials. We also promote primary source literacy within teaching and learning at JMU and in the wider community of researchers.
Special Collections’ materials and services are available to the public.