OQH and Archives Carleton: A home for your queer stuff.

One of the goals of my master’s thesis On Ottawa’s Queer History is to find a place that would be able to store and preserve the writings and interviews that my thesis will generate and the historic materials that I hopefully will encounter as I meet and talk to members of Ottawa’s queer community. Some of the individuals I have chatted with have made their preferences clear, that they would rather have their documents and materials kept in Ottawa than shipped to the archives in Toronto or elsewhere. On top of that, I hoped to find a place that would make the materials as accessible to the community as possible, and not keep them stored in a dusty vault, away from the people who created them.

Last month, I exchanged emails with Patti Harper and Lloyd Keane, who run Carleton University’s Archives and Research Center (ARC), located in MacOdrum Library. They were referred to me by my supervisor, Patrizia Gentile, as a possible institution that would be a match for these demands of security, accessibility and community interaction. I am happy to say it seems like I have a winner!

I sat down with Lloyd one afternoon to see what ARC could offer. I was pretty happy with what I heard. ARC wants to start an Ottawa queer archive and see an Ottawa queer archive as a research collection open to both academics and the larger Ottawa community to use. Lloyd stressed that ARC wants to collaborate with the local community and with other GLBTQ archives and centers to promote the archive. An example of this philosophy is that digital records could be referenced and shared with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto, or Western university’s GLBT centre. Another example of outreach would be the staging of exhibits and events based on the materials collected to which the queer community would be encouraged not only to attend, but to participate in as well. That said, Lloyd stressed to me that ARC is an archive, so while ARC ensures 100% reference accessibility, books and material cannot be loaned out like in a library. Furthermore, once material is donated, it becomes property of the archives so they can do what they can to preserve the materials.

ARC has a lot to offer in terms of support, especially for larger or more fragile collections. Staff can help you process materials before pick up, and can come and collect whatever boxes you have. Once they do, the materials will be reboxed into archives-quality containers. Then over a short amount of time (depending on the size of the collection, but quicker than a larger archive) each item entered into an online database. Materials that are fragile will be protected and/or digitized.

Finally, what sealed it for me is that as part of the university library system, ARC has access to plenty of space, and has steady funding not only for archiving, but for adding rare books on queer history and theory to their collection supplementing the donated data.

If you have any questions or would like to reach ARC in person please contact me through my email (gburke@connect.carleton.ca) or contact:

Patti Harper, Department Head, Archives and Research Collections

Or

Lloyd Keane, Ph.D., Archives and Rare Book Coordinator, at:

Archives and Research Collections

MacOdrum Library

Room 503

Carleton University

1125 Colonel By Drive

Ottawa ON K1S 5B6

http://arc.library.carleton.ca/

Tel: 613-520-2600 x 2739

Fax: 613-520-5600

Thanks for reading, and please donate!

Grant Burke, researcher, Ottawa Queer History.