Bridging Communities

50 Years of Collecting at Georgia State University

Georgia State University’s Special Collections began officially documenting LGBTQ+ history in 2011. During the same year, Fulton County librarian Ann Edmonds attended meetings of SAGE (Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders). Through her attendance at these meetings, Edmonds became aware that many SAGE members were either downsizing their homes or losing members of their aging community and that there was no framework in place to ensure that their “things” found a home. In December 2011, Edmonds called a meeting of local archivists, librarians and interested activists, and the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project (later re-named the Georgia LGBTQ History Project) was formed, with GSU being a prominent member. The Project actively engages with LGBTQ+ communities to encourage them to donate to their local archival repositories, so their histories can be preserved and more widely available. The Project also provides a forum for archivists to help one another collect and manage their LGBTQ+ materials. A number of collections have been offered to GSU as a result of its membership of the Project, including the papers of Lorraine Fontana, Andrew Wood, Hal Meyers, and Hugo Berston.