The LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory is gearing up for an exciting visit this coming week (May 25-28) with Collaborator Dr. KJ Rawson, Assistant Professor in the English department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Rawson is developing the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA), a sophisticated website that will bring together trans archival materials from various collections around the world (http://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.org/). Many such materials are currently spread out across research collections and are not always very accessible. The DTA will allow many more people to access information that will contribute to greater awareness of and learning about trans history. In support of his work creating the DTA, Rawson was recently awarded a Digital Innovation Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (see http://www.acls.org/programs/digital/). Rawson, who earned his PhD from Syracuse University in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric, has written extensively about queer and trans archives and archiving. Along with fellow collaborator Dr. Aaron Devor, of the University of Victoria Transgender Archives, Rawson is the co-editor of an upcoming special issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly that will focus on archives.

Here in Toronto, Rawson will be working with our local Collaborators and institutional partners at the University of Toronto on technical issues relating to such things as database development and digitization, as well as on locating and reviewing trans materials in the CLGA collection. Our team in Toronto has spent the better part of the last six months preparing a “Trans Pathfinder” guide document that will outline what trans materials exist in the CLGA’s collection. We very much look forward to welcoming Dr. Rawson to Toronto and to spending some time together in person working on the many exciting facets of our research and projects. We also hope you’ll say hello if you see us around the CLGA during his visit! To find out more, or to connect directly with Rawson, check out http://kjrawson.net/research/