Composite image featuring (top-bottom) Mark and Mirha on QTV (c. 1998), Mirha-Soleil Ross fonds, The ArQuives; Khush Presents: Desh Pardesh (1990), The ArQuives; and an image from the Foolscap Oral History Project, photographer and date unknown.
Project Overview
In collaboration with the Jackman Humanities Institute’s Scholars-in-Residence (SiR) Program and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives, the Collaboratory led an intensive Digital Collections Lab for five undergraduate students.
Based onsite at The ArQuives, students received hands-on training in archival digitization, metadata creation, and digital exhibition design. Over the course of the program, the team produced three Omeka-based digital exhibitions: Not a Place on the Map: Desh Pardesh (1988–2001); Gendertrash: Transsexual Zine (1993–1995); and Mapping Foolscap: Gay Oral Histories (1981–1987).
Historical & Community Context
Community archives such as The ArQuives hold significant audiovisual and print materials that remain under-processed or inaccessible without digitization and contextualization. At the same time, undergraduate students rarely receive direct training in community-based archival practice and digital humanities production.
The Digital Collections Lab responded to both needs: expanding access to LGBTQ2+ archival materials while training emerging scholars in ethical, community-engaged digital history methods.
Project Goals & Methodology
The lab’s primary goals were:
- To digitize and describe selected audiovisual and print materials from The ArQuives’ holdings
- To train undergraduate students in archival processing, metadata standards, and digital curation
- To translate archival collections into accessible, research-based digital exhibitions
Students digitized audio cassettes and VHS tapes, created abstracts and metadata, selected and edited audio and video clips, conducted contextual research, and built exhibitions using Omeka. The initiative combined technical training with critical reflection on archival ethics, representation, and public history.
Research Scope
The lab focused on three distinct collections:
- Desh Pardesh (1988–2001): Born-digital interviews and visual materials documenting Toronto’s South Asian multidisciplinary arts festival, produced in collaboration with SAVAC.
- Gendertrash (1993–1995): A four-issue transsexual zine published by Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, drawn from Ross’s fonds at The ArQuives.
- Foolscap (1981–1987): Audio recordings from a Toronto-based oral history project documenting pre-Stonewall gay life.
Across all three exhibitions, students worked with audiovisual recordings, print ephemera, and archival metadata to produce curated digital collections.
Project Outputs
- Three publicly accessible Omeka digital exhibitions: Not a Place on the Map: Desh Pardesh (1988–2001); Gendertrash: Transsexual Zine (1993–1995); Mapping Foolscap: Gay Oral Histories (1981–1987)
- Digitized audio and VHS materials
- Newly created metadata and abstracts
- Edited audio and video clips for streaming access
- Undergraduate training in digital archival practice
Impact & Significance
The JHI Scholars-in-Residence Digital Collections Lab demonstrates how undergraduate education can meaningfully contribute to community archives. By pairing technical training with community-based research, the initiative expanded public access to LGBTQ2+ histories while mentoring students in ethical archival stewardship.
The resulting exhibitions continue to serve as research tools, teaching resources, and public history interventions, strengthening connections between university classrooms and community archives.
Project Team
For the Collaboratory
For the ArQuives
