Walter P. Carter Community Library/Reference Room

Omowali Ali - Sojourner Douglass College Librarian.

The Walter P. Carter Community Library and Reference Room is dedicated to the memory of the late civil rights activist Walter P. Carter. The library includes a collection of journals, pamphlets, books, articles, and clippings by and about the role of Black people in the development of American culture and the civil rights movement; including a compilation of Baltimore Afro American newspapers dating back to 1935.

This part of the collection was originally housed at the William L. Moore Foundation, and formed the initial core of the library. The Helms Collection (donated by the late Karl C. Helms) contains materials on African History, African American History, Anthropology, and culture. The Russell Collection (donated by the late Lester F. Russell) contains materials on African American History, Psychology, and Military History.

In addition, there are gifts from Howard University and Sinai Hospital, as well as several small collections which were donated to the College (the Sydnor, Bedell, Rashid collections, etc.). These gifts and other acquisitions have helped the Walter P. Carter Library develop one of the most outstanding and unique collections on African American culture and history in the State of Maryland. There are also reserve books for curriculum support, a periodicals section (including popular magazines as well as scholarly journals), and a modest reference collection. On line literature search and information retrieval is also available through the library's computer system and serves to enhance the reference services. The Library also has a valuable record collection, record player, a cassette tape player, a VCR and monitor.

The collection is for use by students, faculty, staff, and the community, on the College's premises, with lending privileges consistent with the number of copies held and the demand for a given resource item.

Students of Sojourner Douglass College are entitled to borrowing privileges at the Morris A. Soper Library of Morgan State University. In addition to being one of the best and most comprehensive libraries in the state, the Soper Library also houses one of the largest collections of materials on Black life in the country.

Materials that are not available in the Walter P. Carter or Morris A. Soper libraries may be obtained by interlibrary loan through MILO (Maryland Interlibrary Loan Organization). MILO is a courtesy of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, which upon proper request will search various Maryland libraries for any in print material. MILO will also photocopy articles from periodicals and other non circulated materials, such as references books.

The Sojourner Douglass College librarian offers a course on Library Research Skills, and conducts library tours and orientation to the use of the library.