WashU Libraries Awarded Grant to Digitize Local LGBTQ+ Collections
WashU Libraries were awarded a $260,645 grant by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to support the digitization project, Connecting Local LGBTQ+ Communities, Past and Present. This project is one of only 17 awarded in this cycle of CLIR’s Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices program, which supports projects that increase visibility to underrepresented histories.
Connecting Local LGBTQ+ Communities, Past & Present is a three-year project (2027–2029) that will digitize and promote community engagement with LGBTQ+ St. Louis history collections from WashU Libraries Department of Special Collections. The project is led by Joy Novak, Head of Special Collections, and Mitch Sumner, Head of Digital Preservation, Processing, and Reformatting. The project’s primary goals are the comprehensive digitization of WashU Libraries Special Collections local LGBTQ+ collections; promoting community access through public programming; and empowering local LGBTQ+ communities to create and preserve their stories through educational workshops on personal archiving and use of digital collections.
This project will digitize and expand access to an estimated 136,300 pages of document, 52 audiovisual recordings, and over 500 objects from 15 different collections from the WashU Libraries’ Local History archives. These materials include regional newspapers, magazines, and newsletters, organizational records, and personal papers highlighting a broad spectrum of LGBTQ+ voices across more than four decades. Digitized materials will be made accessible through WashU Libraries’ Digital Collections.
Sumner said, “Digitization of these regional LGBTQ+ collections increases public knowledge and advances scholarship on historically silenced voices by dramatically expanding free, online access to this important history.” A broad number of collections will be digitized. These include the St. Louis LGBTQ+ Research Collection, with periodicals, task force publications, posters, games, photographs, and buttons from the 1970s–2000s; records of local organizations, such as the WashU Women’s Resource Center, the 4th National Council on Men and Masculinity ( held in St. Louis), and the St. Louis Gender Foundation (a transgender-focused group); and several personal collections that tell the stories of local LGBTQ+ activists, students, artists, poets, performers, family, and neighbors. This range of publication, organizational, and personal materials document the history of local LGBTQ+ communities through a diversity of perspectives and voices.
This project also prioritizes community engagement once items are digitized, through public outreach programming such as public workshops focused on archival research and preserving personal collections. “The focus on community outreach and programming makes this digitization project unique and even more impactful,” remarked Novak. “In this current environment when LGBTQ+ voices are being silenced, increasing visibility and public access to St. Louis LGBTQ+ history is critical. We developed this project to bring these important local LGBTQ+ history collections more directly to the St. Louis community and, specifically, to empower local LGBTQ+ communities to engage with their own histories and preserve their own stories.”
Ian Darnell, public historian and Curator of Community History at Missouri Historical Society, emphasizes the value of this project for the St. Louis community: “Many queer St. Louisans are interested in finding lessons and inspirations in the struggles and resilience of past generations, and they are anxious to see that LGBTQ+ people continue to be included in our collective vision of the city’s past, present, and future. This makes the preservation and accessibility of LGBTQ+ history critically important.”
Connecting LGBTQ+ Communities: Past & Present begins on January 1, 2027, and focuses on digitization efforts throughout 2027. Public programming including events and workshops are scheduled to begin in 2028. Sign up to WashU Libraries newsletters to receive further information about the project and related programming.