Phil Parkinson and Chris Parkin

As we strive for full recognition of our rights, our culture and our spirituality,
we are creating documents that demonstrate this remarkable process. But these
will benefit no one in the future unless they are preserved ... in a way that
makes them accessible to future researchers.

-- Phil Nash ¹

The Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand is a national heritage research
collection of manuscripts, archives, audiotapes and videotapes, photographs,
ephemera, books, serials, and miscellanea. It is permanently housed as a research
collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library, which is the research library within
the National Library of New Zealand. This large and diverse body of materials is
formally owned by a charitable trust, which appoints one or more curators of its
collections. It is emphasized that the collections do not belong to the State. For all
practical purposes the National Library is housing and providing access to the
documentary history of gay and lesbian communities, individuals, and movements
in New Zealand, and has been doing so for almost a decade without any problems.

This is, so far as we are aware, a unique situation in the world, but it is one that
other major gay and lesbian archives and libraries should seriously consider as a
way of safeguarding and securing the future for such collections. The costs of
maintaining them in private hands are high and dependent upon a flow of
community funds, which can easily dry up. Their continued existence often relies
on small numbers of volunteers, and may be as vulnerable to malice as to
misfortune. In this chapter we describe how an outcome was achieved that ensures
better access, greater security, and a safer physical environment than the community
could ever have managed from its resources alone.

What was to become the Lesbian and Gay Rights Resource Centre (LGRRC)
was established in 1978, under the auspices of the National Gay Rights Coalition
(NGRC), as the NGRC Resource Centre. The purpose of the resource centre was

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