Alison Hinderliter has been appointed Interim Lloyd Lewis Curator of Modern Manuscripts. In addition to continuing to serve as the Newberry’s Selector for Modern Music, Alison will oversee a range of collections related to dance, music, literature, journalism, business, and a variety of other subjects. Alison succeeds Martha Briggs, who recently retired from the Newberry after 13 years as the head of the Modern Manuscripts Division and 28 years total at the library.
Alison first arrived at the Newberry in 1991, when she came aboard as a Project Archivist for the Newberry’s own institutional archives. She went on to the Chicago History Museum where, from 1993-1994, she was a Preservation Archivist, working on the Hedrich-Blessing Collection of Architectural Photographs.
After an additional stint with the Newberry from 1994-1995 (when she served as Assistant Archivist on the Pullman Railroad Company Archive), Alison took positions at the Chicago Public Library in the Harold Washington Library and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra before "coming home" to the Newberry in 2001 as a Project Archivist.
In 2006, Alison was appointed Manuscripts and Archives Librarian, with responsibility for processing and providing access to Modern Manuscript collections, coordinating grant and gift processing projects, and participating in exhibitions and public programming.