The Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is an online

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

and

finding aid A finding aid, in the context of archival science and archival research, is an organization tool, a document containing detailed and processed metadata and other information about a specific collection of records within an archive. Finding aids ...

for

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

-related materials in digital and physical collections. It provides a single

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

for researchers to locate and use materials from more than sixty international

colleges A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary education, tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding academic degree, degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further educatio ...

universities A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

s, and

private collections A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

, including materials hosted by the DTA itself.

The DTA includes

born-digital The term born-digital refers to materials that originate in a Digital data, digital form.NDIIPP"Preserving Digital Culture,"Library of Congress. This is in contrast to digital reformatting, through which analog recording, analog materials become D ...

materials,

digitized Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer-readable) format.Collins Dictionary. (n.d.). Definition of 'digitize'. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english ...

historical materials, and non-digital archives, with a focus on "non-normative gender practices" before the year 2000. The DTA co-locates and provides direct access or links to materials from numerous institutions including

The ArQuives The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives, formerly known as the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, is a Canadian non-profit organization, founded in 1973 as the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives. The ArQuives acquires, preserves, and pro ...

GLBT Historical Society The GLBT Historical Society (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society) (formerly Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California; San Francisco Bay Area Gay and Lesbian Historical Society) maintains an extensive collection ...

Leather Archives & Museum The Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M) is a community archives, library, and museum located in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Chuck Renslow and Tony DeBlase in 1991, its mission is making “leather, kink, BDSM, a ...

, Transgender Oral History Project,

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a Public university, public Urban university, urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropo ...

, and

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and one of the largest repositories of LGBTQ materi ...

. The DTA applies its own

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

schema to all items. The items include

newsletters A newsletter is a printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and Printmaking, images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylind ...

periodicals Periodical literature (singularly called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) consists of Publication, published works that appear in new releases on a regular schedule (''issues'' or ''numbers'', often numerically divided into annu ...

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and pra ...

, and

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

Origins

Planning for the archive began in 2008. The resource was developed in response to several challenges in conducting research on

transgender history Accounts of transgender people (including non-binary and third gender people) have been uncertainly identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide. The modern terms and meanings of ''transgender'', ''gender'', ''gender identity'' ...

. Materials documenting transgender history are widely dispersed, and the level of description and access for materials varies widely. Because the term "

" is relatively new, materials processed in

archives An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

prior to the 1990s may not contain the now widely accepted descriptive term. The DTA makes available materials that were previously unavailable online or difficult to find in archival collections.

Recognition

In 2017, the DTA received the C.F.W. Coker Award for Archival Description from the

Society of American Archivists The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist Voluntary association, association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Establi ...

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control College of the Holy Cross Transgender organizations in the United States Archives in the United States LGBTQ museums and archives Northeastern University LGBTQ culture in Boston

Contents

Origins

Recognition

See also

References

External links