The Dallas Way, a nonprofit organization dedicated to gathering, storing, organizing and presenting the complete history of the city’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, has entered into an agreement with the University of North Texas Libraries to ensure that current and future materials collected by the organization will be permanently archived, digitized and made accessible to the public.
Created in 2011, the Dallas Way consists of lay historians who interview members of the LGBT community and record their experiences, and present some of the stories to the public through its Outrageous Oral storytelling series. The UNT Libraries will receive audio and video recordings of the interviews and Outrageous Oral events as well as books, newspapers, meeting minutes, photographs, promotional posters and other materials acquired or created by the Dallas Way. The materials will be known as The Dallas Way LGBT Collection of the UNT Libraries.
Dreanna Belden, the UNT Libraries’ assistant dean for external relations, noted that board members of The Dallas Way “are very well-connected in the community and have been integrally involved in the formation and inception of several iconic Dallas gay organizations,” including the Dallas Gay Alliance, the Foundation for Human Understanding and the Turtle Creek Chorale.
To learn more, see the full article in UNT News: UNT Libraries to receive archives from The Dallas Way Agreement signals start of organization’s archive collection.