Description

The Hogg Foundation’s “Dialogues on Mental Health Records Project” (DMHR) is a forum to discuss the management, preservation, and sharing of historical public mental health records. To date, we have conducted a landscape analysis of state school and hospital preservation, held five virtual meetings with approximately 100 stakeholders in the management of historical mental health records, and established a monthly presentation series for others to share their work. These efforts are leading to an in-person symposium in Austin, TX on September 24-25, 2026. Participants include archivists, historians, genealogists, hospital administrators and staff, and mental health consumers, many of whom identified themselves as belonging to multiple stakeholder groups.

A conversation will follow where participants are invited to discuss and learn from each other’s shared experiences working with mental health records. Discover the similarities and differences across our collections and how some of your peers are navigating these issues.

We will be recording the Hogg Foundation's presentation but will stop the recording to encourage an open and robust discussion.