The OSU Queer Archives hosted a booth at OSU’s June 1st Pride event in the MU Quad! It was a beautiful late spring day, with over 20 organizations sharing information with the hundreds of event attendees. Drag Queen Poison Waters hosted a meet-and-greet as well as a fabulous main stage show.

OSQA Booth

We had 85 people stop by our booth! We featured copies of materials from a few of our collections including the Corvallis Lesbian Avengers Collection, the After 8 Records, and The Lavender Network Newsmagazine. We also included some materials pertaining to general information for archiving personal papers and some newsletters from the Society of American Archivists’ Archival Outlook newsletter that showcased how archives across the nation support traditionally marginalized communities.

As giveaways, we offered an assortment of Pride pins – those are always a big hit – and, as a new giveaway for this year, we offered a mini-zine about OSQA — we gave out 35 zines!

BONUS: This year our booth was in a special location, on the side of the MU Quad with a Queer History Exhibit.

Queer History Exhibit

Drag Show on the MU Quad Staircase

On Wednesday, May 20th, the OSU Pride Center and Sol: LGBTQ+ Multicultural Support Network hosted a queer zine night in collaboration with the OSU Queer Archives (OSQA).

The Pride Center is located on the southern side of campus at 1553 SW A Ave, Corvallis. Sol is not located within the Pride Center, but holds regular office hours there and in all other cultural centers to help provide support and nurture community for all LGBTQ+ students of color.

All three organizations provided crafting materials with a theme of pulling from our shared Queer and multicultural history. OSQA pulled images from the Lesbian Avengers scrapbooks, the Sol collection, and the Pride Center collection, including photos of what the Pride Center looked like before their recent renovation. The Pride Center provided wonderful mini-zines that guided guests through how to fold, cut, and decorate their own mini-zine! Guests were given free range of topic, and the Pride Center received several donations of pre-made zines as well as ones made during the event. It was an intimate gathering, with 13 enthusiastic event participants. Thank you to the Pride Center and to Sol for hosting OSQA!

Below are a few photos from the event:

And, here is a zine made by Sabrina She, OSQA Student Archivist, during the event!

The OSU Queer Archives was delighted to collaborate with the OSU Pride Center for the Center to host the event “Add Glitter to the Archives”!

The crafternoon event “Glitter in the Archives” began in 2016 as part of Oregon Archives Month and OSU’s Queer History Month celebrations to feature copies of materials from the OSU Queer Archives to use for craft-making. It was hosted in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center’s 5th Floor Reading Room in the Valley Library from 2016-2019, and in 2023-2024, we collaborated with the Libraries’ Crafternoon series and the event was hosted in the main lobby of the Library — hence the new name “Add Glitter to the Archives.” 

Hosting the event at the Pride Center was extra special because the event was an opportunity for many new students to come to the Pride Center for the first time as part of the start to the academic year. It was an event by and for the community in a safe community space. And, it was a great opportunity to get to know the Pride Center staff!

For information and photos from past events, see the blog posts for Glitter in the Archives, 2016-2019 as well as Add Glitter to the Archives 2023.

Below is the crafternoon setup featuring lots of glittery collaging supplies and copies of OSQA archival materials ~ about 12 students, plus Pride Center student staff, joined us for the event!

Event Space Set Up

Event Participants

Photos of some of the beautiful crafts!

Be sure to visit the Pride Center!

“Glitter in the Archives” began in 2016 as part of Oregon Archives Month and OSU’s Queer History Month celebrations. The crafternoon event, featuring copies of materials from the OSU Queer Archives, was hosted in the SCARC reading room and ran from 2016-2019, and it’s finally back!

This year we collaborated with the Libraries’ Crafternoon series and the event was hosted in the main lobby of the library, hence the new name “Add Glitter to the Archives.”  As before, one of the event’s main goals was to use (copies of) archival materials to imagine queer futures, particularly as they pertain to OSU and the surrounding community. For information and photos from past events, see the blog posts for Glitter in the Archives, 2016-2019 

We have some ideas for the event’s future, including hosting an OSQA materials SCARC Open House the week after the crafternoon event, and we hope folks will join us in October 2024!

Here’s the crafternoon setup featuring lots of glittery collaging supplies and copies of OSQA archival materials ~ 14 people joined us for the event!

The event also showcased Glitter creations from past years:

Participants had the opportunity to donate their craft creations to OSQA – we received 5 donations!

Here are more photos of the crafting in action: