Graphical version

Bishopsgate Institute

LAGNA (Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0372 LAGNA

Held at: Bishopsgate Institute

Title: LAGNA (Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive)

Date(s): c1900-2014

Level of description: Collection

Extent: c200 folders

Name of creator(s): Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Hall-Carpenter Archives, named in honour of the lesbian novelist Marguerite Radclyffe Hall and Edward Carpenter, the writer on social and sexual reform, exist to publicise and preserve the records and publications of gay organisations and individuals. The Hall-Carpenter Archives had their roots in the Gay Monitoring and Archive Project established by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) in 1980 with the purpose of scrutinising the media for evidence of discrimination and caring for material deposited with CHE by earlier gay rights organisations. The Gay Monitoring and Archive Project later became separate from CHE, and spent some time in the care of one of its founders, Julian Meldrum, who was employed on a part-time basis by a Manpower Services Commission grant. It was incorporated in 1982 as a limited company under the name of the Hall-Carpenter Memorial Archive Ltd, with a remit of recording and documenting the history of gays and lesbians in Britain. The first Directors were either librarians and information scientists, journalists working for gay publications, or gay rights campaigners interested in maintaining a historical resource. Charitable status was granted in 1983. During this period the Archives were given office space at the National Council for Civil Liberties. From 1984 to 1989, the Hall-Carpenter Archives were housed in the London Lesbian and Gay Centre, and were staffed mainly by volunteers, who collected archives, journals and ephemera, indexed and sorted press cuttings, wrote publications and ran archival projects. Funding was provided by various grants, most notably from the Greater London Council. GLC funding was withdrawn in 1986, and despite approaches, no replacement funding was available, forcing the Archives to leave the LLGC, and be housed at various locations.

The press cuttings collection was moved [in 1988] to the offices of SIGMA (an organisation conducting sexual research in relation to HIV) in Brixton, South London. Their transfer to the Greenwich Lesbian and Gay Centre was arranged by Mark Collins in the late 1990s. In February 1997, the collection was transferred to the Collections Room of the Cat Hill campus of Middlesex University on a ten-year loan. On 2nd June 1998 the collection was formally opened by a Member of Parliament, Evan Harris (standing in for Stephen Twigg MP). The collection was renamed the 'Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive' in 2001 and was transferred to Bishopsgate Institute, London, in January 2011.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Over 200,000 newspaper and journal cuttings from national and local press, 1930s-2000s, covering all aspects of gay life from the 1930s to the present time. The range of topics covered in the collection is very broad and includes arts and the media (film, television, theatre, literature, and entertainment), censorship and obscenity laws, counselling and sex education, employment, international and British lesbian and gay organisations, sexual law reform, trials, prisons, lesbian and gay politics, "the pink economy", religion, transsexuals, transvestism, sex education, health and biographies. The collection also includes a complete bound set of Gay News and its photograph collection, numerous other journals, a nearly complete set of Gay Times, and a collection of banners (including those of OutRage!), badges, T-shirts and other artefacts. The LAGNA Library also includes around 3,000 books and pamphlets on LBGT history and culture.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

No further arrangement required

Conditions governing access:

OPEN

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopying and digital photography (without flash) is permitted for research purposes on completion of the Library's Copyright Declaration form and with respect to current UK copyright law.

Finding aids:

Copy of handlist available in Library Reading Room.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited by LAGNA 16 November 2010

ALLIED MATERIALS

DESCRIPTION NOTES Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: 2010


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Gender minorities | Disadvantaged groups
Social groups x Social class

Personal names

Corporate names
Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive

Places