A lot of books have a call to action somewhere in them. So many, in fact, that we have a term for it. Queers Online, edited by Rachel Wexelbaum, is one such book.
Another collection of essays by queer librarians and archivists (in the same series of books as Out Behind the Desk), Queers Onlineis filled with digital archives that you can access right now. After I would finish a chapter, say, about the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, I'd set the book down and see what that's all about (lesbians, if I had to hazard a guess). The archives house thousands of lesbian ephemera to research or look through, all donated or made by lesbians. Personally, I am most interested in the oral history recordings they have. I should note here that some items in the collection are designated for lesbian eyes/ears/hands only.
I'm a little amazed I'd never heard of the LHA, frankly, but thankfully, Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz's chapter was there to let me know. If you're an attentive reader of this blog, you may recognize that name, and I will get back to her, I have more revelations to share.
Anyway, my other favorite chapter was about LGBT-RAN, which is a religious archive network for queer religious figures. Again, I'd never heard of this organization, and I am extremely happy to have learned about it. As soon as they mentioned where they could be found (lgbtran.org,for those wondering), the book went down and the search engine came up. Here you can find profiles of queer religious figures, records from other organizations, and oral histories, which is all very exciting.
Exciting things being mentioned, the best part of reading an "old" book is a decent amount of time has passed. Most of the archives and organizations mentioned here were only just getting started with their digitization programs and so only had limited numbers to report. LGBT-RAN had mentioned that of the most recent 75 profiles, only six were transgender. I, of course, was a little saddened to see such a low number. But that was well over ten years ago! They must have more now.
And they do! A quick search for "transgender" on their site brings up 10 pages worth of biographies and articles.
This is by far the best part of this book. A cool decade between the writing of the articles and the current-day archives and that many more digitized materials for you or I to see.
Alright, favorite essays out of the way and back to Smith-Cruz. A few posts ago, I wrote about Out Behind the Desk, where I mentioned one of my favorite essays was written by her. Again, she has written a favorite, except this time I thought I'd look into her a bit more.
If you have looked at pretty much any screen in the last year or so, you might have seen the name "Zohran Mamdani," and if you have been alive in the last century, you might have heard of "New York City." Somehow, by ways I truly cannot explain to you, I missed that Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz was appointed the chief record keeper of New York City by the current mayor, Zohran Mamdani, in April of this year.
Queers Online is a lovely book if you are at all interested in archival practices (especially of queer history) or if you just want to learn wher eyou can learn even more about queer figures' lives, the movements they were part of, or the things they made. So go research! I know you're online if you're reading this. Who knows, maybe you'll find out about NYC's record keeper.
Wexelbaum, Rachel, ed. Queers Online: LGBT digital practices in libraries, archives, and museums (Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 2015). Koller-Collins Z688.S47 Q44 2015
