Welcome from the New Lambda Archives’ Archivist 

By Grabrielle Garcia

Hello! My name is Gabrielle Garcia (they/he/she) and I’m Lambda Archives’ new Archivist. I recently finished my Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) at the University of Washington in Seattle in June 2024 after serving as a California State Library grant-funded Project Assistant at Lambda Archives from 2020-2022 and volunteering in 2019. So I’m excited to return to support Lambda Archives’ work of collecting, preserving, and sharing LGBTQ histories in San Diego, Northern Baja California, and the Imperial County region.

Throughout my previous position as a Project Assistant at Lambda Archives, I had the opportunity to contribute to the digitization and metadata creation for many of the Archives’ flat files (including posters and other larger paper materials), processing and creating finding aids for underserved collections such as L2011.13 Vertez Burk’s Collection and L1997.05 Marti Mackey’s Collection, conducting research for our local LGBTQ BIPOC organization’s timeline, co-curating the We Will Not Be Erased exhibit examining HIV/AIDS activism from the 1980s onward and its connection to our present with the COVID-19 pandemic, writing blog posts and designing educational materials, and presenting about the Archives’ and our practices in a variety of settings. These tasks, projects, and opportunities all inspired me to apply to graduate school for my MLIS to pursue a long-term career in the information, libraries, and archives field.

During my graduate studies, I gained experience in both university and private archives, as well as an understanding of topics throughout the broader library and information science field through coursework, including digital humanities librarianship, data science, copyright and information control, government information, collaborations and partnerships in the field, cataloging and metadata for various mediums, and Indigenous systems of knowledge. Working in archives of different sizes with different budgets, users, and collections has allowed me to understand the organizational diversity of the field and learn about a variety of practices and resources. In university archives, I worked on accessioning mostly backlogged collections, which involved taking the first real look at these materials, organizing them, and creating records, finding aids, and inventories that allowed them to be discoverable and understood by the public and internally, sharpening my skills with archival and library databases and softwares. In private archives, I worked across nine different teams, learning about various interlocking components and cycles of archives, while developing a greater understanding of stewarding digital and digitized materials and assets using various technology. My culminating capstone project for my MLIS involved accessioning over fifty boxes of materials from a formerly operating Washington-based independent press at the university archives. I hope to bring perspectives from these experiences to continue and deepen Lambda Archives’ community-driven work and local relationships.

My work now as an Archivist at Lambda Archives will revolve around keeping up with current grant-based digitization and metadata creation projects, facilitating research appointments and potential donations, connecting and collaborating with community members in person or virtually, working on long-term aspirations for the Archives’ such as reorganizing and better maximizing our current physical space, and spearheading efforts to consolidate materials and deaccession excess duplicate materials or materials out of scope with our collecting practices. Archivists by nature curate and make judgments about what should be preserved. Archives are not storage facilities or dumping grounds. While guided by community interests and needs, we need to be rational about our space and resource limitations to make sure materials that matter and are wanted and needed by our communities can be preserved and discoverable for years to come both physically and digitally. I’ll also be working to get our collection finding aids and records online through the Online Archive of California so folks in our communities and throughout the country can more easily discover collections most relevant to them and their needs. 

All in all, volunteering and working at the Archives, starting after my undergraduate degree, truly shaped the trajectory of my career and my life. LGBTQ histories, archives, and stories are of existential importance to our communities. Understanding where we’ve been is important for carving where we will go in our present and future. Accessing, using, and activating archival collections can help foster connections, spark, and support action and activism, create a sense of belonging, and facilitate critical examination and understanding of our communities in a society and world that continues to erase, misrepresent, exploit, and harm LGBTQ lives and experiences. With transphobic and homophobic sentiment and legislation on the rise throughout the country over the past several years, preserving and sharing LGBTQ histories remains essential to our survival. I want people of all ages to be able to access, connect with, and contribute to LGBTQ histories and stories that I couldn’t see growing up or are even hidden by present mainstream narratives.

I look forward to connecting with local, state, national, and international community members alike. You can always send us an email at info@lambdaarchives.org and check out our website https://www.lambdaarchives.org/ for more information regarding making research appointments, accessing digital collections and resources available to the public, our policies regarding donating materials to the collections, our programs and projects, and how to donate to support our important work.