Networking & Gatekeepers
This week I followed up on my search for resources at Mississippi University for Women and the University of Southern Mississippi. The archivist at Mississippi Valley State University is in the process of reviewing their materials for relevant collections. I also sent a follow-up email to Mississippi State University. Despite my course reading identifying reference services for researchers as one of the primary functions of archivists, I still feel anxious sending requests to unknown professionals. Part of that is probably how inexperienced I am in the field and in academia, but I'm sure I am also uncertain about how my request will be received. Reading that archivists have not always been neutral in handling collections related to marginalized groups and seeing a lack of LGBTQ+ headings for collections, I am forming opinions about how friendly institutions are based on the quantity of information available on their website.
Description determines whether researchers will be able to access resources, and so far my project has shown that despite published materials described in library catalogs, many of Mississippi's archival repositories do not have LGBTQ collections described so that they can be discovered. Short of knowing the history of advocates, activists, and those living openly, finding those collections is impossible with limited information online. The archivist is the gatekeeper.
Despite this lack of collections explicitly described, I am beginning to recognize names from my supplemental reading of Mississippi LGBTQ history and know that the community was active in these places. I am beginning to take notes of personal and corporate names and will be doing local and federated searches to identify where existing collections are housed.
Next in the Queue
This week I finished the first sweep of my own school, USM--which provided a handful of LGBTQ oral histories, some of which I believe were used by John Howard in his history Men Like That (the names were changed in his published book). Having considered the different approaches to privacy in citing interviews in a publication versus a collection available only in-person, I have been forced to think more about the attitudes of cishet Mississippians. Will archivists limit my access to finding aids not available online? Is there an element of privacy for one of the few identifiable collection types--oral histories--because subjects may still be living?
So far I have found LGBTQ oral histories and a decent number of theses and dissertations in institutional repositories, which suggests some interest in LGBTQ scholarship and the intention to preserve LGBTQ history. I have not, however, found LGBTQ subject guides, despite the existence in libraries of LibGuides on LGBTQ topics and the existence of LGBTQ or gender studies programs.
I have begun searching the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) and hope to get to the University of Mississippi and Tougaloo College this week. One point of excitement in looking through the search functions at MDAH was the ability to search for authoritative access terms. MDAH, like other archives, had LGBTQ subject files available, despite few or no collections accessible with these terms online.
