*The Library has now purchased access to Archives of Sexuality & Gender. See New to the Library: Archives of Sexuality & Gender*

Thanks to a request from staff and students in HCA the Library currently has trial access to the Archives of Sexuality & Gender from Gale. This fully searchable digital archive spans the 16th to 21st century and is the largest digital collection of primary source material relating to the history and study of sex, sexuality and gender.

You can access this digital resource via the E-resources trials page.
Access is available both on and off-campus.

Trial access ends 18th March 2019.

Archives of Sexuality & Gender include documentation covering social, political, health and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world, as well as rare and unique books on sex and sexuality from the sciences to the humanities, providing a window into how sexuality and gender roles were viewed and changed over time. The types of documents covered include periodicals, newsletters, manuscripts, government records, organizational papers, correspondence, posters, books and other materials.

Currently the Archives of Sexuality & Gender include 3 collections:

• 

  Screenshot from The Exquisite. A collection of tales, histories and essays … Illustrated with numerous engravings. vol. 1-vol. 4. no. 1. Vol. 2. London: Printed and Published by H. Smith, [1842-44]. Archives of Sexuality & Gender (accessed February 18, 2019). http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/99yKK4.

  Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
  The most recently released collection is made up of more than 5,000 rare and unique books covering sex, sexuality, and gender issues across the sciences and humanities and throughout history. This includes a collection from the Alfred C. Kinsey Institute for Sex Research dating from 1700 to 1860, a collection of rare and unique books from the New York Academy of Medicine and the infamous Private Case from the British Library, comprising of printed books segregated from the main library from the 1850s to 1990 on grounds of obscenity. For more about British Library’s Private Case see Obscene books and the bawdy Bard and Psst, want to see some dirty books? Try the British Library.
  

  Screenshot from “Sisters United.” Sisters United (Spring 1983). Archives of Sexuality & Gender (accessed February 18, 2019). http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/99y5g6.

• LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I
  This collection presents important aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. It illuminates the experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations that constitute this community. Historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals are featured, as well as publications by and for lesbians and gays, and extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. The archive also contains personal correspondence and interviews with numerous LGBTQ individuals, among others. The archive includes gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries, reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health, including the worldwide impact of AIDS, materials tracing LGBTQ activism in Britain from 1950 through 1980, and more.
• LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II
  This collection provides coverage of the development, culture, and society of LGBTQ groups in the latter half of the twentieth century. It provides new perspectives on a diverse community and the wealth of resources available in the collection allow for creating connections amongst disparate materials. Since the 1940’s, LGBTQ groups have steadily emerged into society, fighting for equal rights and making their voices heard. Even within the LGBTQ community though, some groups have not been as well represented, or received as much of the limelight, as the more “mainstream” lesbians and gays.LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II provides coverage of these groups, including LG student groups, Two-Spirit people, the Jewish LGBTQ community, LG Christian groups, and bisexual, transvestite, and transgender communities.
  

  Screenshot from Diary, 1925. 1925. MS 7VJH/6/12, The Papers of Vera “Jack” Holme: Diaries. London School of Economics, The Women’s Library. Archives of Sexuality & Gender (accessed February 18, 2019). http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/99yAQ5.

Access Archives of Sexuality & Gender via e-resources trials.
Access available until 18th March 2019.
Feedback welcome.

You can access all the digital primary source collections already available at the Library via the Primary Source databases list. For the duration of the trial you can cross-search Archives of Sexuality& Gender along with the majority of other primary source databases the Library has access to from Gale via Gale Primary Sources (access this via the Primary Source databases list).

Access is only available to current students and staff at University of Edinburgh.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for History, Classics and Archaeology