LGBTQ+ Studies: Making LGBTQ+ History

Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user Daehyun Park

Want to suggest additional resources for this guide?  Have a purchase recommendation?  Want to help with the oral histories projects?  Need assistance with finding resources?  Contact us!

Morna Gerrard

Gender & Sexuality Collections Archivist

mgerrard@gsu.edu

Charlene Martoni

Outreach Librarian for the Social Sciences

cmartonimcelrath@gsu.edu 

If you would like to volunteer to help document LGBTQ+ history in Georgia, there are a number of ways you can help our archivists:

• Conduct oral histories with local activists
  Special Collections staff will provide training and support. Volunteers conduct research, and work with the archivists to compile questions. They conduct interviews in the University Library or in spaces chosen by the interviewees. It is important that volunteers are active listeners and personable.

• Transcribe oral histories
  Special Collections staff will provide training and support. Using audio CD-roms, volunteers type transcripts using a standardized template. Attention to detail and patience are essential!

• Edit oral histories
  Special Collections staff will provide training and support. Using audio CD-roms and typed transcripts, volunteers edit the text. Attention to detail and patience are essential!

• Process collections
  Closely supervised by archives staff members, volunteers are taught to do basic processing tasks, including re-foldering, preservation photocopying and description. Attention to detail is essential, and, because processing takes a great deal of time to complete, volunteers should be prepared to see processing as a long-term commitment.

The Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project is a group started by a group of dedicated archivists/librarians and community volunteers who want to see Georgia's LGBTQ past preserved for future generations. A lot of that history resides in people's photo albums, private letters, and papers. This group is committed to raising awareness among LGBTQ Georgians of the value of the items they have--such as those just listed as well as protest signs used in parades, t-shirts, flyers, etc.

"We want LGBTQ Georgians to become aware of the local archives interested in their items and to start considering donating their items when they feel the time is right. Too often family members may not recognize the historical value of one's keepsakes and may discard them after a death...our goal is to not allow any of Georgia's LGBTQ history to be lost in that way. And given the lack of mainstream coverage of LGBTQ issues in Georgia until fairly recently, most of our history resides with individual, everyday people."

"Like" the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project page on Facebook for further information. Participating organizations include:

Gay Pride Day celebration, Atlanta, Georgia, June 23, 1991.

AJCP212-020b, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.