Course:ARST575K/LIBR539H/The ArQuives

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The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives[1], is a non-profit community archives in Toronto, Ontario, which is one of the world’s largest repositories for information and materials by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit people.

The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives
Collection example from The ArQuives
Founding Year 1973
Community Served LGBTQ2+ Communities,

Groups and Individuals

Type Community Archive
Location Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address 34 Isabella Street

Toronto, ON M4Y 1N1

Website https://arquives.ca/

Formerly known as the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, The ArQuives “aspires to be a significant resource and catalyst for those who strive for a future world where LGBTQ2+ people are accepted, valued, and celebrated.”[2] Their mission is to “acquire, preserve, organize, and give public access to” LGBTQ2+ materials, primarily from or concerning Canada.[2]

History

Founded in 1973 out of the Body Politic newspaper collection, The ArQuives has undergone a series of name changes over the years. Originally founded as the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives, the organization changed their name to the Canadian Gay Archives in 1975, and then to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in 1993, after receiving charitable status in 1981.[3]

The name “ArQuives” was implemented over the course of 2018-2019 as a result of the 2017 strategic plan which identified diversification and inclusion as critical priorities. The current name is intended to be more inclusive of the diversity of LGBTQ2+ communities who have historically been excluded from the archives.[4]

In a statement on historical inequities approved by the Board of Directors in January 2021, the organization acknowledges its historic role in perpetuating the erasure and marginalization of certain queer communities which were excluded from the white, cis, and gay male perspective upon which the organization was founded. The ArQuives recognizes that “Black, Indigenous, people of colour, trans, non-binary, bisexual, women, and disabled LGBTQ2+ folks” in particular have been excluded from representation in their collections, and they have committed to the diversification of their collections, staff, and volunteers, including the implementation of an Anti-Racism and Inclusion Plan in 2020.[4]

This current work to diversify the organization demonstrates the way in which community archives generally reflect the “founding ideals and motivations of a few key individuals,” which in this case were the white, cis, gay men who originally created the Body Politic.[5][6] In doing so, The ArQuives can be seen as acknowledging the impact of “symbolic annihilation” in the form of archival erasure and misrepresentation.[7] While The ArQuives was originally founded to fill the “gaps and underrepresentation of certain voices within traditional archival collections,” they still must contend with an exclusionary collecting history.[8] By “acknowledg[ing] and recogniz[ing] the work of volunteers and staff who have contributed to The ArQuives while not seeing themselves represented in the collections,” the organization stresses the importance of representational belonging as a means of empowering communities through autonomy, authority, social-belonging, and self-representation.[4][7]

Additionally, the organization’s commitment to redressing these archival erasures through participatory practices and involvement of the LGBTQ2+ community in decision-making speaks to the definition of community archives, which stresses participation, shared stewardship, a multiplicity of voices, activism, and reflexivity “about the shifting nature of community”.[9]

Collections

The ArQuives is comprised of a broad range of record types, both personal and organizational. Collections reflect the lives and experiences of LGBTQ2+ people and the community groups and organizations that they form, with primary (although not exclusive) focus on Canada.[10] This includes not only more conventional archival materials such as textual records, photographs, and audio-visual records, but also artworks and artifacts, clothing, books,[11] as well as what might usually be termed ‘ephemera’ outside of the body of a community archives collection.[5] Material of any format is considered of interest, provided it is within the subject scope of the archive and can be accommodated and preserved.[10] The ArQuives “accepts donations from community members or any organizational record about LGBTQ+ life in Canada.”[12]

Collections are held in two Toronto based locations, both at the main office and research space and at an off-site storage facility.[13] Archival holdings are organized into several sections, including fonds, and a number of separate collections of materials that have not been amalgamated into a fonds:[12]

Archival Records (personal and organizational):
  • Textual records
  • Audio-visual records
  • Posters
  • Photographs
  • Objects relating to the fonds
  • Fiction/non-fiction
The James Fraser Library (books & monographs):
  • Works of fiction/non-fiction
  • Monographs
    • Academic articles, papers, pamphlets, reports
  • LGBTQ+ serials
    • Zines, newsletter, calendars, magazines, other publications
Further Reference Material:
  • Vertical files
    • International and domestic research files
  • Newspapers and newspaper clippings
Collections of Artworks and Artifacts:

Community-based archives like The ArQuives collect materials that are generally overlooked by mainstream repositories. The collection of these materials is in part an effort to create a more representative view of the past.[14] The ArQuives houses artifacts that are produced by and/or document LGBTQ2+ people and communities, including but not limited to:[10]

  • Buttons and pins
  • Posters
  • Matchbook covers
  • Banners and flags
  • Leather gear
  • T-shirts
  • Uniforms

The ArQuives also maintains a collection of artistic works, including paintings, drawings, fine photography, fine print, textiles, sculpture, or any other objects of merit, with a focus on LGBTQ2+ groups and particular interest in previously underrepresented communities.[15]

Scholar Elizabeth Brown has argued that a postcustodial approach is well suited to community archives and their work, particularly those that intersect with the archival ethic of historically white, cis-centric LGBTQ2+ community archives. Although as of yet the postcustodial approach to collection policy has not been fully implemented by The ArQuives, the strategy has been used in recent efforts, most notably with some of the records concerning Toronto’s Black queer history.[16]

Programming

Exhibitions

Exhibitions are held both online and in-person, and are a major way for The ArQuives to connect with the LGBTQ2+ community.[2] Digital exhibitions in particular are extensive and represent one of the most effective ways of making the collection accessible to the public.

Featured exhibitions have included:

  • Jim Egan: Canada's First Public LGBTQ Activist
  • Genderqueer in Canada
  • LGBTQ+ Tabloid Newspapers
  • Lesbians Making History: Oral History Project

Collaborative exhibitions are also effective ways for community archives to engage with their communities. The ArQuives has begun to support the activities of activists in the community through this means; for example, in 2019 the organization directly supported artist Courtnay McFarlane's exhibition and public programming concerning Toronto's Black queer history, entitled "Legacies in Motion: Black Queer Toronto Archival Project". [16]

Community Engagement and Outreach

The ArQuives seeks to address issues by working in collaboration with community members and community partners in ongoing networks and coalitions.[17]

Community engagement and outreach are overseen by the organization’s own Community Engagement Committee, who meet once a month and are represented by a diverse range of backgrounds and skills.[18] Outreach activities represent the increasing efforts of community archives to remove or lessen barriers between users and custodians.[19] The committee strives to foster community building and promote the use of archival holdings through a number of initiatives, some of which include the following:

Pride Walks: Heritage Toronto

In recent years The ArQuives has offered a walking tour of Toronto’s Gay Village, in collaboration with Heritage Toronto.[20] Archivists and historians from The ArQuives lead groups through various points of interest along the route, presenting facts, stories, and histories relating to the community. The tour culminates at The ArQuives' main location on Isabella Street.[21]

Youth Initiatives

The ArQuives delivers tours, known as Queer Orientation, to undergraduates and graduates at the University of Toronto's iSchool (Faculty of Information).[22] Until 2008, outreach activities were almost exclusively aimed at people of university age or older; at the request of high school teachers and in conjunction with changing education policies in the province of Ontario, the committee now schedules presentations to be delivered at schools. Presentations are held with the intention of raising the profile of the organization, educating children about the histories of LGBTQ2+ communities in Canada, as well as welcoming newcomers and encouraging participation amongst LGBTQ2+ identifying students.[18][23]

Anti-Homophobia Education in Ontario

The Government of Ontario has recommended that topics covering sexual identity, homophobia, and gender based violence and harassment be introduced to students in Grade 6, and continued in more depth in following years. Community based organizations such as The ArQuives work in collaboration with schools to offer classes and presentations on the history of LGBTQ2+ communities in Canada, and extend invitations for students to learn more about the organization.[18]

Qaleidoscope Gala

The Gala is an event held annually to support both the preservation and growth of the collection, and to support continuing efforts relating to education and outreach. LGBTQ2+ community members, artists and allies, professionals, politicians, local organizations and companies are invited to evenings of entertainment, including dancing, costume, and a live auction.[24]

Tours

Tours of the archive building are offered on a regular schedule, twice a month, allowing visitors the opportunity to see how The ArQuives operates and giving them the chance to view the body of the physical collection. Tours are accompanied by a presentation. Educational tours and private tours are also available for booking.[25]

Access

In-Person

The ArQuives is located in the downtown core of Toronto, easily accessible by public transit, and is open for public visitation between Tuesdays and Fridays.[26] The physical archival space is housed in a mid-19th century designated Heritage Home. Considerable efforts have been made to improve accessibility, including the addition of ramps and elevators.[27] Archivists are generally available to assist visitors with research requests, while tours, events, and programs are also regularly offered in-person.

Finding aids are available in order to better facilitate the use and research of the collection. These aids range from item/file listings, to multi-level descriptions that document the relationships between, and context of records. The descriptive fields found in the finding aids at The ArQuives are in accordance with the Canadian archival descriptive standard, RAD (The Rules for Archival Description).[12]

Digital

In addition to in-person services and programs, The ArQuives offers extensive digital access to many newspaper indexes, vertical files and the library catalogue, as well as including digital photos of many items and artifacts in the collections.

COVID-19 Response

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, The ArQuives is temporarily closed to the public as well as to all volunteers. The organization’s limited staffing has meant that they are unable to fulfill most research requests at this time. When possible, they will refer researchers to other resources. They offer a fee-based remote researcher service--which is resource dependent--in which for $50/hour, a researcher may speak with a reference archivist and select materials to be viewed in their stead.[28]

The ArQuives cancelled the 2021 Qaleidoscope Gala in order to comply with pandemic restrictions and to prioritize the safety of their community.[24]

While the physical archives remain closed, the organization encourages researchers and community members to engage with The ArQuives online through their Online Collections Portal,[29] their Digital Exhibitions,[30] and their online programming.[31]

Affiliations and funding

The ArQuives is an independent, non-profit organization that is not affiliated with a larger institution or mainstream archive.[2]

Former Toronto City Councilor Kyle Rae is credited with helping The ArQuives find a permanent home in the Jared Sessions house, which was sold to the organization for $1 by the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.[32][3] The ArQuives was also the recipient of a $50,000 grant from Toronto City Council in 2016 in order to renovate the building to make it more accessible.[27]

They host an annual Qaleidoscope Gala for fundraising and also rely on donations, memberships, and research fees and services.[33][34]

Conclusion

As evidenced through its history, collections and holdings, and programming and outreach initiatives, it is clear that community is central to the work of The ArQuives. While the expansiveness of that community has changed over time, demonstrating their commitment to social inclusion through representational belonging,[7] The ArQuives has spent the better part of five decades working to center LGBTQ2+ voices which have traditionally been excluded from mainstream archives. While the organization acknowledges that there is still work to be done to be inclusive of all self-defined queer communities, their commitment to community-building, outreach, and participatory decision-making is indicative of the nature of community archives.[5] It seems that as the organization grows and changes, they are placing more emphasis on the notion of the “self-definition and self-identification”[5] of the community they represent by encouraging “engagement and participation from all LGBTQ2+ people now and in the future.”[4] In changing their name to “ArQuives” they are gesturing towards this broader, self-defined community, which may continue to change in the future.

References

  1. ↑ The ArQuives. (2021, August 5). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 About Us. The ArQuives. (2021, June 10). Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/about.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The ArQuives. Wikipedia. (2021, September 26). Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ArQuives.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Historical Inequities Statement . (2021, January 19). The ArQuives. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://usl448981qgr4gg2uhdp83f-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Historical-Inequities-Statement.pdf.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Flinn, A., Stevens, M., & Shepherd, E. (2009). Whose Memories, Whose Archives? Independent Community Archives, Autonomy and the Mainstream. Archival Science, 9(1-2), 71–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9105-2
  6. ↑ Bradburn, J. (2015, February 14). Historicist: I Sing The Body Politic. The Torontoist. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://torontoist.com/2015/02/historicist-i-sing-the-body-politic/.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Caswell, M., Migoni, A. A., Geraci, N., & Cifor, M. (2016). ‘To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise’: Community Archives and the Importance of Representation. Archives and Records, 38(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2016.1260445
  8. ↑ Graham, S. (Host). (2021, July 16). Canada’s LGBTQ2+ History at the ArQuives  [Audio podcast episode]. In History Slam. Active History. http://activehistory.ca/2021/07/historyslam186/
  9. ↑ Caswell, M. (2014). Seeing Yourself in History: Community Archives in the Fight Against Symbolic Annihilation. The Public Historian, 36(4), 26–37. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2014.36.4.26.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Acquisition Policy. (2016, November 15). Canadian Lesbian+Gay Archives. Retrieved October 1, 2021, from https://usl448981qgr4gg2uhdp83f-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/A001_Acquisitions-Policy_V.01.pdf
  11. ↑ Our ArQuives. The ArQuives. (2020, December 3). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/arquives.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Research Guide. The ArQuives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://usl448981qgr4gg2uhdp83f-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/P004_Research-Guide-External-Use.pdf
  13. ↑ What's in the Archive. The ArQuives. (2013, February 12). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/latest-news/whats-in-the-archive.
  14. ↑ Caswell, M. (2014). Inventing New Archival Imaginaries: Theoretical Foundations for Identity-Based Community Archives. In Identity Palimpsests: Ethnic Archiving in the U.S. and Canada (pp. 35–55). UCLA.
  15. ↑ Art Collection Policy. (2016). Canadian Gay + Lesbian Archives. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://usl448981qgr4gg2uhdp83f-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/A002_Art-Collection-Policy_V.01.pdf
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Brown, E. (2020). Archival Activism, Symbolic Annihilation, and the LGBTQ2+ Community Archive. Archivaria 89, 6-33.
  17. ↑ Advocacy Policy. (2020, December 7). The ArQuives. Retrieved October 5, 2021, from A024_Advocacy-Policy.pdf (netdna-ssl.com)
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Zieman, K. (2009). Youth Outreach Initiatives at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Archivaria (68), 311-317.
  19. ↑ Flinn, A. (2010). The Impact of Independent and Community Archives on Professional Archival Thinking and Practise. In J. Hill (Ed.), The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping: A Reader. 149-174. Facet.
  20. ↑ Pride Walks: Heritage Toronto Tours. The ArQuives. (2015). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/latest-news/pride-walks-heritage-toronto-tours
  21. ↑ The ArQuives’s Community Engagement, New Improved Pride Walk: LGBTQ+ Heritage in The Village. The ArQuives. (2018). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/latest-news/clgas-community-engagement-new-improved-pride-walk-lgbtq-heritage-in-the-village
  22. ↑ Queer Orientation Tours The ArQuives. The ArQuives. (2015). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/latest-news/queer-orientation-tours-the-clga
  23. ↑ Sheffield, R. (2020). Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times 11(11). Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 The Qaleidoscope Gala. The ArQuives. (2020). Retrieved October 1, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/programming/qaleidoscope-gala.
  25. ↑ Booking Programs & Tours. The ArQuives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/programming/booking
  26. ↑ Contact . The ArQuives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/contact
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Smee, M. (2017, January 5). Toronto's Gay Archive Getting an Upgrade. CBC. Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-s-gay-archive-getting-an-upgrade-1.3921914.
  28. ↑ Research. The ArQuives. (2021, September 24). Retrieved October 1, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/arquives/research.
  29. ↑ Search Our Collections. The ArQuives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://collections.arquives.ca/.
  30. ↑ Digital Exhibitions. The ArQuives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/.
  31. ↑ Programming. The ArQuives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/programming.
  32. ↑ Houston, A. (2010, November 1). Kyle Rae Retires After 19 Years on Toronto City Council. Xtra Magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://xtramagazine.com/power/kyle-rae-retires-after-19-years-on-toronto-city-council-8816.
  33. ↑ Donate. The ArQuives. (2021, August 4). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/donate.
  34. ↑ Our Store. The ArQuives. (2020, November 8). Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://arquives.ca/store.
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