On a Friday night, beneath glowing Art Deco chandeliers, Carolyn Alam serves popcorn and drinks from the concession stand inside Detroit’s historic Redford Theatre. Above, a 35-millimeter film reel spins through a projector unchanged since the 1950s. By day, Alam is an archivist at Bentley Historical Library, supporting U-M’s Inclusive History Project. Since November 2025, she has preserved the university’s records and Michigan’s broader history.
“The end goal is always the same,” Alam stated. “It’s to make sure that the stories live on for people to learn from.”
Alam began volunteering at the Redford in 2022 after a lifetime of watching films there. Initially interested in running the projector, she started helping in concessions, a common starting point for volunteers. She was drawn to the building and the community of film enthusiasts.
“The atmosphere of coming early and getting to be in the empty theater is very attractive to me,” she said. “But the thing I really love is meeting the other volunteers because they also love movies and are really passionate about the Redford, going to the movie theater, and keeping places like this open.”
That sense of living history gives the theater meaning for her.
“The Redford is beautiful in a very literal sense. It’s a gorgeous building, and a lot of work has been done to make sure it is still a gorgeous building,” Alam said.
Before Bentley, Alam worked at the Detroit Sound Conservancy, a community archive aiding residents in preserving cultural collections. She learned preservation extends into neighborhoods and community spaces.
“With the Redford and the Detroit Sound Conservancy, there’s a lot in common because we relied so heavily on the work of the community to assist in the archiving,” she said.
Her volunteer work at the Redford inspired her to pursue a master’s in information and library science with a certificate in archival administration at Wayne State University, completed in May 2025.
At Bentley, Alam processes collections, organizes materials, and prepares records for public access. Her work reflects a commitment to inclusive historical narratives, including a collection on a lawsuit by the Children of the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi Tribes against U-M’s Board of Regents.
“Something really essential about Michigan history, University of Michigan history, history in general, is that it didn’t start in 1817 or 1776 or 1609 or when the settlers came here,” she said.
For Alam, archives are living records of human experience.
“I think that’s just what brought me to this because archives are that contemporaneous history,” she said. “You’re reading what these people were thinking and what they were going through.”
Her preservation philosophy embraces digital advances.
“With digital, something really fragile never has to be touched again and it can be preserved, and you can use the digital copy as much as you want,” she said.
Alam’s connection to preservation is deeply tied to Michigan. She grew up in Grosse Pointe, attended U-M, lived in Detroit and Hamtramck, and now resides in Ypsilanti.
“I’ve never really felt compelled to live anywhere else,” she said.
She recognizes Detroit and Ann Arbor’s differing preservation approaches.
“I think there’s a fine line between making sure everyone has a place to live, which is important, and destroying the character of the city,” she said.
Whether processing archival collections or serving concessions at the Redford, Alam focuses on the human stories.
“I’m always looking for that story,” she said, “so I can understand what’s happening in greater context.”
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