IN DEPTH
Representation in the University Archives
The University of Hong Kong’s Head of Archives, Garfield Lam, consid- ers the value of archives as a legitimising tool for under-represented communities inspired by the examination of a newly acquired collection.
Hong Kong University’s Head of Archives, Garfield Lam, considers the value of archives as a legitimising tool for under-represented communities through the examination of newly acquired collection.1
Community-based archives tend to be activist by nature. They are active part of local communities by organising events and providing a safe gathering space. For example, the LGBT archives are defined as archives that are intentionally selecting, collecting, and preserving queer history primarily to provide access for sexual and gender minorities and to ensure cultural visibility.2
The University Archives of the Univer- sity of Hong Kong has recently acquired nine-linear metres of personal archives from a retired teaching staff member, Pro- fessor Petula Ho, who has been an educator, author, activist, and broadcaster in Hong Kong. Her archives, covering 30 years, focus on gender studies, sexual minorities, relationships, and social taboos, recorded on video, cassette tape and in photographs and unpublished manuscripts, including research and teaching materials, personal interviews, and broadcast footage. Her academic works document not only the personal and emotional struggles of some but cultural barriers and social acceptance towards the sexual and gender minorities in Hong Kong.
18 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL
Garfield Lam (
kfglam@hku.hk) CA, MCLIP, FRSA, Acting University Archivist and Head of Archives, Special Collec- tions, Conservation and Preservation of The University of Hong Kong; and Executive Bureau Member of Interna- tional Council on Archives – Section of Universities and Research Institutions (ICA-SUV).
Archives, much like the closet, expose various levels of publicness and privacy – recognition, awareness, refusal, impulse, disclosure, framing, silence, cultural intelligibility – each mediated and determined through subjective insider or outsider ways of knowing. These elements strike an impartial balance within the archives between reachability and remoteness, and precariousness and pleasure.3 This acquisition not only reminds me of how little we collected regarding minorities at the University, but also of the only known, probably the earliest, LGBTQ story kept in the University Archives through a group photograph, dated 30
December 2023
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