Public Books
2025 Editor’s Pick
Tao Leigh Goffe

A vital voice of a new generation who holds dear the mastery of archival rigor…As I read it, the book is a finding aid for global black thought and thinkers to find themselves. Berry unabashedly takes on theory and admits to being an autodidact in it, whereas her credentials are in library science…Ultimately, Berry offers strategies not solutions or directives, like any good archivist or librarian would, because the only way through dusty archives is to follow their own path. The House Archives Built is experimental and hybrid in form, which captures the imagination and leaves the reader wanting more, the next installation.

Kirkus Reviews

Berry is among the leading archivists of the 21st century. What makes this book special is not only her deeply personal connection to Black archives, but her learned discussion of how archival theory intersects with Black history.

A powerful, poignant, reflection on the past and future of Black archives.A digital curator, Berry is among the leading archivists of the 21st century. What makes this book special is not only her deeply personal connection to Black archives, but her learned discussion of how archival theory intersects with Black history.

Places Journal
Brandi T. Summers

Dorothy Berry’s sharp and confident voice pairs well with the collection of visual, literary, and typographic elements that comprise her archival testimony…Ultimately, the reader is invited to engage Berry’s biographical sketching and assemblage of documents to imagine Black archival possibility – in an increasingly impossible world.

Shannon Mattern
Author of A City Is Not a Computer and Code and Clay, Data and Dirt

In The House Archives Built, Dorothy Berry skillfully imbricates allegiance to professional archival protocols with improvisation, the communal with the personal. A seasoned archivist and musician, Berry experiments with bibliographic and bureaucratic forms, collages together a range of media formats, and harmonizes the voices of Black archivists and archival subjects to find thrilling new possibilities within archives’ institutional and domestic architectures.

Ashley Clark
Author of The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films

In The House That Archives Built, Dorothy Berry identifies herself as a 'digital humanist'. In an era where we find ourselves stalked around the internet by rapacious algorithms bent on convincing us not to think for ourselves, a little ‘digital humanism’ is needed more than ever. Luckily for us, Berry’s perspicacity extends to the analog world, and her slim-yet-rich and evocatively illustrated volume offers a generous, all-encompassing inquiry into the politics, practice, and ethics of documentation, research, and memorialization. The House That Archives Built is a unique and thoughtful piece of work produced by a unique and thoughtful person, and I strongly recommend it.