Major Research Paper 

Supervisor: Greg Bak

Project Title: When You’re Up to Your Ass in Alligators: The Futility of Respect des Fonds in the Context of the Manitoba Gay/Lesbian Archives (tentative)

Description: My MRP investigates the administrative history of the Manitoba Gay/Lesbian Archives (1988 to ca. 2004) and the MGLA’s original custodial organization, Rainbow Resource Centre (formerly the Winnipeg Gay/Lesbian Resource Centre). During the Resource Centre’s 2003-04 fiscal year, the Archives were disassembled, moved into a storage unit, and largely abandoned until their contents were salvaged by Ryan Schultz and subsequently transferred to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. To the best of my ability (and in conversation with several archivists and volunteers formerly involved in the aggregation and maintenance of the collection), I reconstruct the provenance, original order, and arrangement of the records that initially comprised the MGLA. Finally, I interrogate the extent to which these concepts are truly determinable and discuss how the MGLA’s records complicate traditional notions of the archival fonds.