Archival Practice MA Dissertation, Plymouth University: ‘Towards a Standard for Describing and Indexing LGBT+ Archive Materials’
LGBT+ history is becoming an increasingly important and popular area of research, but for many reasons, LGBT+ records in archives are often hard to find, and can be upsetting. High quality descriptions in catalogues could reduce these issues and make LGBT+ records more accessible. I aim to discover the current state of LGBT+ description in mainstream archive catalogues, as well as the approaches preferred by LGBT+ users and professionals in LGBT+ archives. Using this information, as well as existing scholarship and other standards in the sector, I plan to propose some best practice guidelines on how to describe and/or index LGBT+ records in archive catalogues for maximum sensitivity and findability. I hope that such guidelines can help archivists to feel more confident approaching LGBT+ records and make the experience of researching LGBT+ history safer and easier for users.
This questionnaire:
This questionnaireis intended for LGBT+ people who are involved or interested in LGBT+ history; you do not have to be a regular user of archives to complete this questionnaire. The aim of the questionnaire is to assess LGBT+ people’s preferred terminology, and their feelings about terminology in historical sources: as such, participants should be warned that this survey contains a few examples of historical language that may be upsetting.
Questionnaire link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/K25LGCD
Please contact me at elise.collins@students.plymouth.ac.uk with an questions, concerns or feedback.