CLGA | History Internships

Five tips to organize your massive research project

Research material, photo by Jazz DiMauro

By Nico Mara-McKay

One of the major projects I'm working on at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives is a digital exhibition that will highlight the material the archives has regarding genderqueer and other gender identities beyond the binary of female or male.

It's a large project and it hadn't been done before, let alone attempted by an undergraduate student. It was a bit of a learning curve, but it provided an opportunity to pick up new skills as I went, and I'd like to share some of the strategies I've been using to both discover material and organize the data I found.

5 things to understand before approaching an archivist

When you're on the other side of the desk or inbox, you may not know what goes into completing an information request. To provide a bit more background for researchers, I asked Lucie Handley-Girard, the archivist at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, what it is that an archivist does, and what she wishes researchers understood about her job.

Queering the archive

Whose stories are included and which communities are left out matters, and the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archive recognizes this and is actively working to make changes.