Calling all students!
We actively reach out to universities to help them subscribe all of their students to The Fashion and Race Database. Sometimes, librarians and administrators are not aware of FRD or its incredibly important value. Other times, they need to hear that their students and faculty would utilize it, and find it essential to their fashion studies!
If your university program does not yet subscribe to the database, we suggest that you send a personalized note to the right decision-makers to express your interest. First to your dean, and second to your university librarian.
Here are some talking points you can make.
The best message will be in your own words, but we welcome you to copy and email this sample letter to your school. Your advocacy will help broaden the resources and lessons that your school provides, and will help us build a more just and diverse fashion system.
Dear _____,
I’m writing to ask if our library can sign up for a sitewide subscription to The Fashion and Race Database. FRD is a relatively new database, so I realize you might not be familiar with it. But it is one of the ONLY resources in fashion studies that elevates the voices of racialized researchers and hosts over 1,000 books and articles on diverse fashion history and racism within the fashion industry. The company that runs it, Artis Solomon LLC, is a Black-owned business, and was founded by Kimberly M. Jenkins, a fashion studies professor.
It is so much more cost-effective for institutional subscriptions than it is for the cost burden to be on each of us students. You can find out more about its pricing and features here: https://fashionandrace.org/database/institutions-businesses/.
One of its most valuable research tools is the ability to search for scholarship by keyword or a particular sub-theme in fashion studies. But not only have they catalogued books and journal articles, they also have aggregated all of the pop-culture podcasts and video lectures across the web where scholars and fashion designers have given relevant interviews.
I would find this such an important tool to the program here. Please let me know if there is any way our university can subscribe this year.
Thank you for considering it. Sincerely,