As of October 2024, LIAL has acquired a copy of the LGBT Oral Histories of Central Iowa (LOHCI) project archive. This collection contains over 100 oral histories, conducted between 2019 and 2020, by students at Grinnell College under its PI, AJ Lewis. Notable narrators include author Carmen Maria Machado, guitarist Mya Byrne, and Des Moines community leader Rick Miller, among others. UIowa’s Library and Information Science graduate student Murray Rice is interning with LIAL this semester to help process the collection. Also working on the collection are volunteers Katie Davis and Samantha Obman.
LIAL’s oral history repository, LGBTQ Iowa Narratives (LIN), is in its primary collecting phase as well.
If you are interested in volunteering to transcribe interviews or produce oral history materials, contact LIN’s project lead, Carmela, at lgbtqiowanarratives@gmail.com.
