Into the Fold, Episode 11: The Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane

Assessing how far we've come in our treatment of persons with mental illness demands that we understand where we've been. In this episode of Into the Fold, Dr. Patricia Galloway discusses the monumental effort to digitally preserve patient records from the segregation-era Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane (now Central State Hospital). A key collaborator on the project, which is headed by former Hogg Foundation executive director Dr. King Davis, Galloway discusses the ongoing work to transform this trove of records into a publically accessible archive, the challenges of long term preservation, the key stakeholders in the project, and how the archive is deepening our understanding of the evolution of treatment standards for persons with serious mental illness. Galloway is Professor of Digital Archiving and Archival Enterprise in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin.