Visitors are welcome to view any of our videos
at the Archives
(click to enlarge)

Audio-Visual Collection The Archives houses several different types of audio-visual materials. Our Music Collection contains LPs, CDs, and cassette tapes, most of which have been catalogued and can be searched by computer. In addition, we have a large collection of Spoken Word cassette tapes and CDs of lesbian and feminist radio shows, readings, conferences, interviews and oral histories.

Our Video collection contains approximately 600 videotapes. Some are home movies, others document community events such as dyke marches, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization St. Patrick’s Day protests, pride marches, conferences and so on. We also have videos of TV programs, documentaries, shorts and feature films. Although we do have a complete list of our holdings, the collection is only partially catalogued on the computer. It will be completed shortly.

We also have two special collections of video material. The first is the collection of the L.O.V.E. Tapes (Lesbians Organized for Video Experience) from the early 1970s. L.O.V. E. was an early video collective that documented various lesbian events, including demonstrations by Lesbian Feminist Liberation. The second is a special collection from DYKE TV that contains all of the unedited videotape, mostly shot from 1992 until 1999. These tapes cover a vast range of topics and they came with a complete listing so it’s easy to find those you might want to view.

We keep the originals of most films and videos stored off–site in a climate controlled storage archive in order to preserve them as long as possible. We keep dubs of these at the Archives for viewing purposes. As another means of preserving these tapes we are now beginning a project to digitize them.

Our Photography Collection contains approximately 12,000 printed photographs, located in files, binders and albums. In addition, we have a collection of slides, which have been placed into binders. The Photo File is arranged alphabetically, either by the first name of the photographer or the subject, and we have a computer listing of the files in it. The photo albums and binders usually contain the work of a specific photographer or the personal photos documenting the people and events in a particular lesbian’s life. In addition some of the binders hold slides of artists’ work. Many of the photographic images we have can be used for publication or display; either we have permission to allow this or we can get in touch with the photographer so you can make the necessary arrangements. If you are looking for photographs please leave at least one month in order for us to get permissions if necessary.

The Graphic/Poster Collection is stored in two large flat files plus several large acid free boxes. The flat files are arranged in broad categories, such as “Political Events, Calls for Actions, Marches, Rallies” and “Lesbian (and Gay) Pride Events, Awareness Weeks, Conferences”, “Literary Events, Readings, Bookstores”, and so on. The boxes usually hold the work of one artist or atelier, such as the Women’s Building in Los Angeles. The collection dates from the 1970s to the present. We often use pieces from our graphic/poster collection to create exhibits at the Archives. We also have a small collection of original fine art work, although it has not yet been catalogued. Actually, at the present time we are not really able to preserve artwork in the way we think it should be, so we prefer if you send us slides of your work but keep the original or donate it to an Archive that specializes in fine art. However, we will not turn away artwork if you prefer that it become part of our collection and we hope to eventually be able to preserve and store it appropriately.