Grant Supporting Online Exhibit Awarded to Archives and Special Collections

A project to curate the online exhibit “Omaha's LGBTQ+ Bars: An Online Exhibit to Preserve Local History and Share Their Stories” has been successfully funded. Using the Criss Library Archives and Special Collections’ Queer Omaha Archives and other archival material, the project will prioritize the research of Omaha’s LGBTQ+ bars in the 1970s. Support provided by Fund for the City of New York on behalf of its fiscally sponsored project, the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project.

The award from the LGBTQ+ Heritage Alliance is part of the first national grant program dedicated to places related to LGBTQ+ culture and heritage. The grant program is funding initiatives to document historic places. Grants support efforts that advance the recognition, preservation, and interpretation of historic sites related to LGBTQ+ communities in the United States and its territories.

Amy Schindler and Claire Dunker are PIs for the grant project. The award from the LGBTQ+ Heritage Alliance will support a UNO student employee conducting research for the online exhibit. This new initiative gets underway as Archives and Special Collections marks ten years since the launch of the Queer Omaha Archives collecting initiative in 2016.

The Queer Omaha Archives collects and preserves unique and rare documents, photographs, videos, and other historical materials about the LGBTQIA+ history of Omaha and Nebraska as part of Criss Library's Archives and Special Collections. Through donations from over 100 community members, the Queer Omaha Archives shares the stories of individuals, organizations, and the communities they create. Archivists welcome opportunities to share LGBTQIA+ historical material already in the archives with individuals and organizations. This online exhibit will provide another means of sharing archival material virtually with those unable to visit Archives and Special Collections or the traveling exhibit “Pride and Joy: Nebraska History” in-person.

Community members are invited to contact archivists in Archives and Special Collections to further support the initiative. Donations of photographs, correspondence, newsletters, and other archival material continue to be collected to add to the Queer Omaha Archives. Financial contributions to support the initiative can be made directly to the Queer Omaha Archives Fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation or by contacting Amy Schindler, Director of Archives and Special Collections.

About Criss Library

The Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library fulfills the UNO mission through dynamic services, highly qualified and adaptive personnel, unique and extensive collections, and accessible learning spaces and environments. With its location on UNO’s Dodge Campus, Criss Library provides UNO students, faculty and staff, and the Omaha community with the resources and materials needed to excel academically and professionally.

About the LGBTQ+ Heritage Alliance

The LGBTQ+ Heritage Alliance is a national network of people interested in historic preservation and place-based research related to sites of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture and history. The LGBTQ+ Heritage Alliance is fiscally sponsored by the National Center for Civic Innovation, which has received support from the Mellon Foundation.