Archivist as activist: lessons from three queer community archives in California

Abstract

The Case of LLACE: Challenges, Triumphs, and Lessons of a Community Archives Activism, social justice, and community involvement in the archives have become hot topics as of late, 1 but activism is nothing new for community archivists and volunteers. For decades members of marginalized groups have collected, preserved, and curated collections of materials for and by communities through the work of individual activist archivists. For underrepresented groups the creation of community archives was a political act in defiance of marginalization. 2 Furthermore, community archives were a way to provide a safe space for community members to come together for study, leisure reading, and socializing. This article extends our understanding of critical issues of relevance to the entire profession found in the literature by using a small queer community archives as a case study. These issues include: why founding a queer community archives was necessary; the role played by community members in creating and maintaining the archives; the development of collections and descriptive practices; and the ongoing challenges of sustaining community archives.

Queering the Community Music Archive

“…As the scholarly interest in DIY and community-based archiving grows -of which music archiving and heritage is a subset -so has a body of literature emerged focusing specifically on queer and feminist archives. Our review of this literature is not exhaustive, but includes several books (see Kumbier 2014;Halberstam 2005;Cvetkovich 2003), edited collections (see Keilty & Dean 2013; Bly & Wooten 2012), journal articles (see Caswell & Cifor 2016;Chenier 2016;Cooper 2015;Taavetti 2015;Samer 2014;Sheffield 2014Sheffield , 2016McLeod et al 2014;Eichhorn 2014;Manalansan 2014;Madden 2013;Wakimoto et al 2013;Boulay et al 2012;Darms 2012), and special issues by journals such as Radical History Review ('Queering Archives: Historical Unravelings', 2015) and Archivaria ('Special Section on Queer Archives', 2009).…”

“…Marginalised groups, such as women and queer communities (gay, lesbian and bisexual; trans* and intersex; and various other sub/cultural groupings of sexual/gender dissidents), have traditionally been excluded altogether or had their minoritarian status erased from mainstream historical narratives and heritage institutions (Cooper 2015;Taavetti 2015;Wakimoto et al 2013;X et al 2009;Cvetkovich 2003). As a consequence, they have been responsible for establishing their own collections, archives and museums to preserve their histories, to save what is at risk of being lost.…”

A marshall in love. Remembering and forgetting queer pasts in the Finnish archives

“…In particular, in the USA, some of these community archives are very long living and flourishing, now with a history of well over 50 years (for the history of three Californian queer community archives in particular and the US queer archive field in general, see Wakimoto et al 2013). In Denmark, the national lesbian and gay association (LGBT Danmark) collected the movement's own history for 25 years, and the documents were donated to the Danish National Archives (Pedersen and Edelberg, Unpublished manuscript).…”

“…In Anglo-American countries, collecting private archives, such as queer collections, is very distinct from organizing governmental archives. Different queer archives have often started as completely private organizations with little or almost no funding, relying on volunteer work and donations from the community the history of which they work to preserve (on community archives in the UK, see for example Flinn et al 2009; on queer archives in California, see Wakimoto et al 2013). Also, queer community archives often have very tight links to the community around them (on Northampton Sexual Minorities Archive, see Hemmings 2002, p. 55;on Arch Sci Lesbian Herstory Archive, see Cvetkovich 2003, pp.…”

The Use of Personal Value Estimations to Select Images for Preservation in Public Library Digital Community Collections

“…Some examples include regionally-based communities [30][31][32] and historically underrepresented communities that are born of discrimination based on race, social and economic status or sexual orientation [33][34][35][36][37]. For the purpose of the research presented here, the community recorded at the largest level is the city of Indianapolis, and at the smallest level are the various neighborhoods served by the branches of the Indianapolis Public Library.…”