THE GREY FOLDER PROJECT

RON COLEMAN IS A REFERENCE AND SYSTEMS LIBRARIAN  at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

In his work at the USHMM since 2003, Ron assists scholars, students, family researchers, and other visitors wishing to use Museum collections to learn more about the Holocaust and related subjects.

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He has an undergraduate degree in History, Literature, and Philosophy from West Virginia Wesleyan College, and a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

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For the last several years, Ron has organized and researched an enormous collection of original materials from the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker relief organization that worked to help thousands of people fleeing Nazi Europe before and during World War II.  Ron's work has made this collection, consisting of more than 20,000 original case files for individuals and families helped by the Quakers, more accessible.  Dozens of scholars and families wishing to learn more about their loved ones' wartime experiences have found answers within the refugee case files. 

During a recent fellowship at the Wiener Library in London, Ron worked on the project, "Tracing Refugee Assistance Networks Using Case Files" to identify similar collections of case file materials in London-area archives, and learn how the Wiener Library staff have made their own collections of refugee-related materials more accessible.