This stopping point isn’t related to any one event, but we wanted to focus our scope on the period where there’s less overall preservation. The Queer Digital History Project (QDHP) is an independent community history project documenting and preserving information and content related to early LGBTQ spaces online, stopping around 2010. How would you describe this collection to a perfect stranger? In this conversation, Avery discusses the challenges of managing an entirely digital archive, the richness of pre-2010 queer online communities, and how archives like these contribute to queer scholarship-and the safeguarding of LGBTQ+ rights, which continue to face political attack in the US and abroad. Since its inception, Avery has grown the QDHP to encompass a unique breadth of early LGBTQ online spaces like chat forums and Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes). After compiling resources for his dissertation on trans digital communication, Avery decided to share his findings on an open website to increase their accessibility and use.
In this Ask an Archivist, Avery Dame-Griff, creator and curator of the Queer Digital History Project (QDHP), provides background on the genesis and development of the community-led collection.
