$750,000 Awarded by California State Library for Preservation and Digital Accessibility of California’s LGBTQ+ History

From the California State Library:

The California State Library announces the award of $750,000 in grants to protect and share important documents from California’s LGBTQ+ history. This funding will be used by museums, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations around the state to ensure the physical and digital preservation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer materials relevant to the LGBTQ+ movement, culture, experience, and/or history in California.

“California has a history that is rich and important to preserve,” said California State Librarian Greg Lucas, “This funding will help Californians see and hear the past come alive through digitized publications, videos, speaker series, and community events.”

Collections to be preserved must be based in California, be of research value, must relate to California LGBTQ+ history and culture, and accessible to the public. They can include monographs, serials, manuscripts, archival ] materials, maps, architectural drawings, sound recordings, photographs, moving images and newspapers. However, they cannot include preservation of works of art on paper, paintings, sculpture, or other objects.

The Following Organizations Have Been Awarded Grants:

• University of Southern California ($134,947) – Preserving and sharing through USC’s Digital Library and Calisphere historical collections documenting diverse LGBTQ+ experiences held by ONE Archives and identifying LGBTQ+ collections held by “L.A. as Subject” members.
• California State University at Dominguez Hills Foundation ($100,000) – Cataloging and digitization of LGBTQ collections relating to work, activism and publications as well as funding of an LGBTQ speakers’ series.
  
• GLBT Historical Society ($100,000) – Building 10 new digital collections, processing and digitizing items from the historical society’s LGBTQ Film and Video Collection and hosting two public events that provide instruction on using digital resources and showcase the materials available at the GLBT Historical Society.
• Museum of Art and History at the McPherson Center ($91,029) – In partnership with The Diversity Center, digitizing and publishing online a collection of photographs, printed materials, and audiovisual components that document LGBTQ+ leaders, communities, and activism in Santa Cruz County from 1974 to present.
  
• The June L Mazer Lesbian Archives ($88,935) – Cataloging and making available to the public 297 cubic feet of unique Lesbian and Feminist material.
• Lambda Archives of San Diego ($71,835) – Preservation of and wider public access to materials and stories that document California’s LGBTQ history, sharing knowledge and skills to help other LGBTQ+ community organizations start preserving other collections; and establishing a network of accessible workflows of basic archival processes for digital and analog materials.
• BAYMEC Community Foundation ($61,250) – Providing public awareness and access to Silicon Valley’s rich but largely undocumented queer political and social history by cataloging and digitizing documents of people significant in the local LGBTQ movement.
  
• Autry Museum of the American West ($57,056) – Preservation and access to the California Gay Rodeo materials held at the Autry Museum through archival processing, cataloging, digitization, public programming, a research fellowship, exhibit installation, and a social media campaign.
  
• University of California, Davis ($18,000) – Digitizing and preserving rare, historical LGBTQ+ newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals held in the UC Davis Library’s Gay and Lesbian History and Culture Collection.
• Color Compton ($15,000) – Hosting programming focused on discovering and exploring the LGTBQ+ history of Compton, as well as offering youth an opportunity to explore and create a collaborative, cross generational archive of the LGTBQ+ history of Compton.
• Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive ($11,948) – Cataloging, preserving, digitizing and sharing online the newsletters, photographs, and ephemera of the Educational Transvestite Channel and its successor, TransGender San Francisco.