NOTE: This blog post and interview were produced on the recommendation of our colleague Dr. Marc Stein, director of OutHistory.

Having a good sense of the LGBTQ+ archives and resources available in North America has been crucial in my scholarship. My doctoral project on the history of gay periodicals led me to a number of these repositories, which included both physical and online spaces. Yet the increasing number of queer archives and the occasional changes in their operational structures make it difficult to keep track of them all. Many archives change names, others become part of larger institutions, and some simply stop existing. Dr. Alexandra Ketchum has recently launched a directory of LGBTQ+ archives and resources in Canada and the United States that will be of tremendous help to scholars, archivists, students, and community members who are interested in queer history and to those who wish to keep track of these spaces.

Dr. Ketchum’s directory is comprised of two lists. One features LGBTQ+ specific archives — including some previously independent queer archives that are now part of a larger archive — while the other one features collections and resources that did not fall under the first category.

For Dr. Ketchum, this is an important distinction that was not part of previous directories of LGBTQ+ archives, such as the Lavender Legacies guide. This earlier guide was an initiative of the Society of American Archivists’ Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable (LAGAR) and constituted “the first formal and comprehensive guide to primary source material relating to the history and culture of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgendered (LBGT) people held by repositories in North America.” The guide, however, is no longer being updated.

Dr. Ketchum, who is a Faculty Lecturer of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at McGill University, built on previous, similar efforts, like the Lavender Legacies guide, to offer a new, updated, and comprehensive directory that also includes digital resources. While her interest in compiling this list emerged from the specific needs of her research projects, she has decided to make the list available to everyone through the digital platform LGBTQ+ Archives in the USA and Canada. Her project is a generous contribution to the study of LGBTQ+ history and exciting proof of the growth and development of queer archives in both community-based organizations and mainstream institutions.

To help grow the directory, Dr. Ketchum welcomes contributions to her project, especially if folks notice any missing archives or resources. Find out how to contribute here.

To help connect users to this exciting new directory, our colleague, Dr. Marc Stein, director of OutHistory, proposed that we conduct an interview with Dr. Ketchum and cross-publish it on our respective online platforms — a creative alternative to the standard “resources list.” Below is a video recording of my conversation with Dr. Ketchum. For those who prefer the written word, stay tuned to OutHistory who plans to publish the complete interview transcript very soon.  

Enjoy!