Tales from the Crypt: The Tales from the Crypt program includes high school juniors from the Mississippi School for Math and Science (MSMS) who dress in period costume to perform vignettes on individuals buried in Friendship Cemetery for public tours in March/April. They research their assigned subject throughout the Fall semester and each student completes an historical analysis on their persons life. Archivist Mona Vance-Ali and her team work closely with the MSMS students in navigating the historical resources available in the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System archive that date back to the 1830s. The Tales from the Crypt project has won numerous awards and was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” in 2015. To learn more visit https://themsms.org/tales-from-the-crypt/.

Mona Vance-Ali has been the Archivist for the Local History Department at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System for 20 years. She received her MA in History/Public History from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and her MLIS from the University of Southern Mississippi.

In 2011, she published a book titled Images of America: Columbus. From 2014-2017, she taught a class on Public History at Mississippi University for Women.

She has received several state and national grants through the Mississippi Humanities Council, Library Services and Technology Act, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission with the National Archives and Records Administration.