Nash Photo Collection wins 2022 John Sessions Award

The American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association presents the 2022 John Sessions Memorial Award to the Nash Photo Collection of the Washington State University Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections. The award is sponsored by the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO. The Washington State University Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections is commended for its efforts to make the Nash Photo Collection accessible to the community, and for involving that community in identifying people in the photographs to enrich the knowledge of current and future viewers and researchers. The collection “depicts the rich social, cultural, political, and economic life of the Yakima Valley migrant labor community.” Of special relevance to this award, it also depicts farm worker union meetings, rallies and protests, including visits by Cesar Chavez, and Washington community organizers Guadalupe Gamboa and Tomás Villanueva. Project manager Lipi Turner-Rahman’s creation of a Facebook group for the collection as a way to both promote it and crowdsource identification and create richer metadata is particularly impressive. Guide to the Irwin Nash Photographs of Yakima Valley Migrant Labor 1967-1976.