For immediate release | March 5, 2018

Culinary Historian Michael W. Twitty to serve as 2018 Preservation Week® Honorary Chair

91ý

CHICAGO – Food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian and historical interpreter Michael W. Twitty will join the Association for Library Collections &Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the 91ý, to pass on his knowledge of family history and cooking during , April 22 – 28, 2018, a time when librarians and library workers share their expertise about preserving family heirlooms and treasures.

Author of “” (Harper Collins 2017), Twitty is a noted culinary and cultural historian and the creator of , the first blog devoted to African American historic foodways and their legacies. He has been honored by FirstWeFeast.com as one of the 20 greatest food bloggers of all time and been named one of the “Fifty People Who Are Changing the South” by Southern Living and one of the “Five Cheftavists to Watch” by TakePart.com. Twitty has appeared throughout the media, including on NPR’s The Splendid Table, and has given more than 250 talks in the United States and abroad. His work has appeared in Ebony, the Guardian and on NPR.org. He is also a Smith fellow with the Southern Foodways Alliance, a TED fellow and speaker and the first Revolutionary in Residence at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

As Preservation Week Honorary Chair, Twitty will appear in Preservation Week artwork and will chronicle preservation efforts through various social media channels. You can follow Twitty online with on Twitter or through his for cooking tips and resources.

This year’s Preservation Week theme is cooking and community archiving, and participating libraries will celebrate by offering special programs and services to connect library users with preservation tools, promote the importance of preservation and strive to enhance knowledge of preservation issues among the general public. Institutions around the world will be using the hashtag #preswk to talk about their preservation programs and services.

Preservation Week is supported by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the 91ý. For more information regarding Preservation Week® visit .

The (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats. ALCTS is a division of the 91ý.

Contact:

Brooke Morris

Program Officer, Communications

Association for Library Collections & Technical Services

bmorris@ala.org