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Compiled By GayToday Courtesy of The Letter
Included in the transfer are 2,943 books, 13,730 magazines, newspapers, journals, and newsletters (1,263 titles), about 350 videotapes, and assorted posters, buttons, and ephemera. Erotic materials are not included. The library and archives will now be known as the Williams-Nichols Collection, named for its founder, David Williams, who is also editor of The Letter newspaper, and Norman Nichols, his late lover, who died from complications of AIDS in 1995. It will be housed in the Special Collections Division. The decision vaults the University of Louisville into a rare pantheon in the world of gay and lesbian libraries and archives. Other university libraries can boast of numerous gay and lesbian books, but few have as many newspapers and magazines, not to mention videotapes and other items.
Among the rare items being transferred are near complete sets of such pioneering gay and lesbian publications as One Magazine, The Mattachine Review, The Ladder, and Vector. The university will also have nearly every issue of The Advocate ever published. Numerous rare feminist magazines from the 1970s and 80s–some believed one of a kind--are also included. Rare books include a first edition of Oscar Wilde's A Picture of Dorian Gray; early editions of various works by Wilde and his lover, Lord Douglas; a heterosexualized edition of Sappho's poetry printed in Lexington in the 1920s; a pioneering study of prison sex from 1934; a breakthrough lesbian autobiography from the 1940s; and several examples of gay and lesbian "pulp fiction" from the 50s and 60s. The collection also contains numerous books on AIDS as well as anti-gay diatribes written in the 1990s by various members of the religious right, including Louisville's Ron Ray. The Kentucky Gay Archives was started almost on a whim in November 1982. Williams, a self-confessed pack rat like his grandmother, proposed it at a meeting of Gays and Lesbians United for Equality, a now-defunct umbrella group for all the gay and lesbian organizations operating in the city at that time. The archives remained relatively small–no more than one bookshelf and a few boxes–until 1986, when Williams began collecting in earnest. The following year it legally separated from GLUE. It was incorporated as the Williams-Nichols Institute in 1994. Momentum picked up after that as donations poured in from various members of Louisville's and Kentucky's GLBT community. Late in its life, Williams often quipped that he used to tell people the archives was at his home, but now "I live at the archives." He stopped adding bookshelves after the seventeenth, piling books on the floor of his apartment thereafter. The floor began to sag under the weight. His basement filled to overflowing with newspapers in boxes and file cabinets full of news clippings and correspondence. A walk-in closet served as a crowded repository for perishable items like photographs and videotapes. When he decided in January to move to a smaller apartment in the same house--which he owns--the library and archives went into storage at four different locations, including a dingy warehouse on 13th Street: the first time it was broken up. Final decision to move the collection came after he sent an email to readers on this newspaper's internet list, informing them of its precarious status. Shaun Daniels, a librarian who's associated with Common Ground, a gay-inclusive student group at the University of Louisville, contacted curator Delinda Buie, who suggested it be placed at the Ekstrom. The move meshes well with the Ekstrom's recent application to become a "research library," the top professional designation for university libraries in the country. Only 250 or so libraries have achieved that status. Buie feels that the addition of a strong GLBT collection will only enhance the library's reputation. Williams considers the move a sign of the times. When he started it in 1982, he didn't think anyone else–least of all a college library--would be interested in collecting GLBT books and materials. "It's extremely heartening that a library like the Ekstrom would be willing to take over the collection now," he says. "It shows how far we've come in just one generation. Delinda has been nothing but enthusiastic." Although he initially felt some reluctance in removing it from its community base, he feels the positive advantages of accessibility and better preservation outweigh any disadvantages. "We feel it's the right move for all the right reasons." The move is also symbolic. Kentucky's GLBT movement achieved its first victory at the University of Louisville in 1970 when university president Woodrow Strickler stood down state legislative efforts to block "Gay Lib" classes at the school's Free University. University students went on to form a nucleus of local activism in the ensuing years. Even though the library and archives is no longer community-based, the collection still needs the support of the community and its friends if it hopes to grow into the kind of world-class GLBT resource its founder hopes it becomes. Donations of materials may be made directly to the Special Collections division at the Ekstrom Library, Belknap Campus, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292; or to the Williams-Nichols Institute, Inc., 1464 S. Second St., Louisville, KY 40208. Funds will continue to be needed for purchase of subscriptions and books. They should be sent to the Williams-Nichols Institute directly. |
David Williams holds a picture of his lover, the late Norman Nichols. Kentucky's archives have been named after the two men 