NEWSLETTER
Society of American Archivists
Lesbian and Gay
Archives Roundtable
Volume 2, Issue 2
1991 August
Whole No. 6
SAA ANNUAL MEETING LAGAR Agenda
The LAGARoundtable meets on Saturday, 1991 Sep 28 at 3:30 to 5:30 PM. Please check your final program guide or hotel monitor for the room assignment. The agenda is:
I. Opening remarks and attendance sign-up for SAA.
II. LAGAR Objectives clarified.
III. Discussion of draft bylaws and the creation of any committees [see the issue supplement for a copy of the draft bylaws].
IV. Election of Women's Co-chair.
V. Summary of Directory Project by Stephen Nonack
VI. New Business.
VII. Speaker Tommi Avicolli on local gay Philadelphia history.
Raison d'etre: LAGAR Objectives
The following are the officially submitted objectives of LAGAR on file with the SAA. The additions in brackets are suggested grammatical corrections that do not modify or change the substantive meaning of the text Please review the following objectives and suggested changes before coming to the LAGAR Meeting. If anyone believes there is any major topic missed, please be prepared to discuss it at the meeting.
LAGAR Objectives.
1. Bring together people who are concerned about the collection, preservation, description and research use of archival materials documenting lesbian[s] and
[replace "and" with ","] gay people [change "people" to "men”] and [their] institutions.
2. Keep lesbian and gay [-male] issues in archives and history more visible within SAA.
3. Educate archivists about the importance of identifying and preserving historical records documenting the lives, accomplishments and culture of lesbians and gay men.
4. Act as a liaision between SAA and community-based lesbian and gay [-male] archives. Encourage and facilitate the participation of lesbian [and] gay [-male] archivists in SAA activities and the professional archival community.
5. Exchange information with other gay [-male] and lesbian [reverse adj. order] professional groups.
Women's Co-chair position open.
Women of the Roundtable interested in being a co-chair should attend the annual meeting or have a personal representative there to voice their interest. The volunteer position is for a two-year term. The responsibilities are best described as coordinating the efforts of the Roundtable in conjunction with the male co-chair for the betterment of the Roundtable. The co-chairs work as liaisons between the Roundtable, the SAA and archival repositories.
Tommi Avicolli to speak at meeting
Tommi Avicolli, editor of the Philadelphia Gay News and community activist-archivist, will give a slide presentation on the history of the gay movement in Philadelphia.
LAGAR Office Hours
The "Office Booth" is located in the Exhibition Hall of the hotel. LAGAR's hours will be Friday, Sep- tember 27th, from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM. Anyone interested in working at the booth, please contact Scott Bartley.
Funds for LAGAR
The SAA Council recently raised the amount of money given to Round-tables for mailings from $75 to $100. This year at our annual meeting, LAGAR will be "passing the hat" to allow members to contribute to our fund for a variety of LAGAR needs (ie. speakers at meetings, mailings other than the newsletter, project costs).
A FABULOUS NIGHT ON THE TOWN!!!
LAGAR members are invited to join a group on Saturday, September 28 for a "Night on the Town". We will meet in the hotel lobby at 6:30 PM before going to a Center City restaurant. From there, the group will decide what they want to do after dinner. Further information will be available at the LAGAR meeting.
Gay life in Philadelphia is concentrated in three areas: 13th Street
corridor, Spruce and Pine Streets and South Street These areas are in downtown Philadelphia (called Center City), eight miles away from the conference hotel. It would be advantageous to avail yourself of the SAA bus service to get to this area. As with any large city, one should be cautious when walking at night in Center City.
A preprinted guide of the Philadelphia area by the David James Press will be available from Scott Bartley [call hotel operator for room number], from the LAGAR booth during office hours and at the LAGAR meeting. One can also preview Philadelphia gay life through numerous guides from most any gay bookstores and the feature travel article in The Guide; Gay Travel, Entertainment, Politics, & Sex in the 1991 August issue (11:8).
The following is a brief list of places of interest for gay people. Ritten-house Square is a meeting place for those who enjoy people-watching, sunning, reading, etc. The two newspapers are the Philadelphia Gay News and Au Courant, which occasionally inserts "The Source", a listing of community groups and service organizations. The Giovanni's Room (345 S 12th) and Afterwords (218 S 12th) are two fine bookstores.
Center City has only one "gay" restaurant called Raffle's (243 S Camac) which including a piano bar and country-western dancing. Other gay-friendly restaurants are Astral Plane (1708 Lombard), Mom's (1713 South) and More Than Just Ice Cream (1141 Pine). The bars in town tend to be gender specific, though not exclusive. The men's bars are: Bike Stop (206 S Quince; Levi/leather), Kerf (1229 Chestnut; young, dance crowd); Rodz (Rod-man near South & Broad; trendy dance crowd) and Woody's 202 5 13th; professional crowd). The main women's bar is Hepburn's (254 S 12th).
The popular gym is the 12th Street Gym (204 S 12th). Another place of interest is Penguin Place (201 S Camac). It is the Community Center for Philadelphia and provides space for a gay library and archives. The Center was recently burned out and may not be fully opened by our meeting.
I want to thank Douglas Haller for helping me compile this brief list.
LAGAR Sessions
These are no LAGAR proposed ses-sions in the program this year. However, members may be interested in attending Session #30 Rescuing Histories: Blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York State. This session deals with identifying and collecting material on minorities outside the mainstream repository environment.
LAGAR Members on the Move!!!
Scott Bartley was recently promoted to Manuscript Curator for the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston MA.
Deborah Shelby was recently hired part-time by the Barker Texas History Center in Austin TX.
Nanci Young now works at Princeton University Archives in Princeton NJ. She previously worked at the New York State Archives on a one-year grant.
Additions and Changes to the Archives list
The following are changes and corrections to the Archives list sent with Volume 2, Issue 1, of this Newsletter.
add: Dokumentatiecentrum
Homostudies (Homodok) University of Amsterdam
ILGA Archives
Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185 NL-1012 DK Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: 620-5252601
Homodok is a research library for gay studies and contains periodicals, newspaper clipping files (computerized) and dissertations. Homodok is part of a non-profit foundation and publishes the bibliographical column "Relevant" in Homologie Magazine.
TLC '91 [Texas Lesbian Conference] PO Box 402063
Austin TX 78704
DocuDykes, self-proclaimed by TLCers, are a group of women who came together to preserve the records of the annual Texas Lesbian Conferences. The primary goal is the collecting of all material relating to the last four conference. The Texas Lesbian Conference Archive, so called, is to be housed at the Barker Texas History Center (BTHC). This group, working with the BTHC, is expanding their colledting [sic] to include other gay material for this repository. One new interest is gathering oral histories of lesbian activism in the Austin area. Anyone interested in helping the group should contact Meg Barnett or Deb Shelby at the address above.
change:
Canadian Women's Movement Archives
PO Box 128
Station P
Toronto ONT M5S 2S7 Tel: (416) 597-8865
National Museum of Lesbian and Gay History
Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center
208 WEST 13 Street
New York, NY 10011
NEWS NOTES
New Acquisition at NYPL
The New York Public Library recently received the International Gay Information Center (IGIC) collection. The collection documents the gay movement in the United States from the 1950s through the 1980s. The donation comprises over 100 boxes of documents including the records of the IGIC, the records of other organizations and people active in the gay civil rights movement, as well as printed materials (ie. flyers, leaflets, circulars and newsletters] which portraits [sic] the daily social and political endeavors of gay organizations across the country. The collection will be housed by the Research Library's Division of Special Collections. [source: GLTF Newsletter, Spring/Summer 1991, 3:3&4, p.7]
Cornell Additions
Cornell's Collection on Human Sexuality received its first grant for assistance in the arrangement, preservation and description of its manuscript collection spanning 200 cubic feet. Phil McCray started in February as the grant-funded, full-time processing archivist The estate of George Fisher, alias Ed Drucker, gave the Human Sexuality Collection a gift of 166 boxes from his Elysian Field Booksellers business in New York, the country's largest dealer in out-of-print gay books since 1972. [source: Brenda J Matston, Human Sexuality Collection Archivist]
Holocaust Documentation
Archivists aware of documents relating to homosexuals and the Nazi Holocaust may wish to bring them to the attention of the librarian of the national Holocaust Memorial Museum, still under construction. Contact: Elizabeth Koenig, Librarian, Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2000 L St NW, Seventh Floor, Washington DC 20036, (202) 822-6464. [source: GLTF Newsletter, Spring/Summer 1991, 3:3&4, p. 8 and Laurie Baty]
Fifth Lesbian & Gay Studies Conference
The Fifth Lesbian and Gay Studies Conference is being held at Rugers [sic] University on 1991 Nov 01-03. The event is sponsored by Rutgers and Princeton Universities. Contact Monica Dorenkamp or
Beryle Chandler, Center of the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture (CCACC), Rutgers University, 8 Bishop Place, New Brunswick NJ 08903. Tel: (908) 932-8678 or FAX (908) 932-8683. [source: GLTF Newsletter, Spring/Summer 1991, 3:3&4, p. 9]
Electronic News Network
The Gay/Lesbian International News Network (GLINN) has been launched. It is a computer-based, non-profit news service for the gay press, individuals, organizations and businesses. All you need is a computer and modem to access the latest news. Uploading access to the sys-tem is free and full access is available with a membership.
GLINN is requesting news releases that may impact the gay community. One can reach GLINN in following ways:
* Place GLINN on your first class mailing list at PO Box 93626, Milwaukee WI 53203-0626
* Fax your releases 24-hours a day at (414) 289-0789
* upload ASCII files containing releases at (414) 289-0145 (8N1 2400)
* Sign up as a member; receive copyright clearance to network information (Memberships from $15-$55, depending on size of one's organization).
For more information, call the GLINN voice mail system at (414) 289-8780 or the Executive Editor personally between 9 AM and 9 AM (CT) at (414) 289-7777. [source: GLTF Newsletter, Spring/Summer 1991, 3:3&4, p. 10-11]
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The LAGAR Newsletter hopes to run short articles on different gay-related archives starting with next issue. If you are interested in writing a short article on your repository, please contact the editor of the Newsletter.
CHAIRS of the Roundtable
Steven Wheeler, 1988-1990
Deborah Shelby, 1989-1991
Scott Bartley, 1990-1992
Editor of the LAGAR Newsletter
Scott A Bartley New England
Historic Genealogical Society
99-101 Newbury Street
Boston MA 02116-3087
(617) 536-5740 [voice]
(617) 536-7307 [FAX]