Queer History Month – A Redpath Exhibition

The Humanities and Social Sciences Library would like to wish the McGill University Community a Happy 2021 Queer History Month. Every year in Canada, the month of October is observed as a time to reflect and learn about LGBTQ+ history and culture.  This year’s Queer History Month theme is “Coming Together”.  

For the 2021 Queer History Month, the Humanities and Social Sciences Library would like to showcase the diversity of Queer resources you have available to you for teaching, learning and research purposes both online (see online exhibit) and in physical format. Visit the Queer History Month Calendar to learn more about the various programming during the month of October. 

Under the care the Liaison Librarian for LGBTQ+ Studies, the McGill Library has been able to acquire access to valuable digital archives such as to the Archives of Human Sexuality and Gender, Alexander Street Press’ LGBT Thought and Culture, and Adam Matthew’s Defining Gender. These primary source digital archives provide you with access to historical newspapers and newspaper clippings, personal journals, photographs, magazines and more!  

Discover Queer McGill’s History 

A small search for “Gay McGill”, present day Queer McGill, in the Archives of Human Sexuality and Gender reveals numerous digitized documents that help us relive Queer McGill’s history as one of the first and most influential LGBTQ+ organizations at McGill, in Québec, and in Canada. Learn about the 1974 Gay McGill Civil Rights Public Foruman article published in The Gay Times. Rediscover the 1979, 1981 and 1988  Gai(e) Danse posters for the dances Queer McGill held on campus. Read what quite possibly might be the first mention of Queer McGill (formally Gay McGill) in the July-August edition of Body Politic (Toronto, Ontario). If you find any other interesting historical things about McGill and its Queer Community, let us know in the comments!  

Scholarly Articles Databases 

In addition to these primary source treasure troves, you will also find important databases for scholarly publications, like the Gender Watch and Gender Studies Database. These two databases provide access to journals that published scholarly articles on gender and sexuality studies.  

Physical Redpath Display 

Finally, we invite you to look at the physical display located in the main hallway of the Redpath Library Building. You’ll see a selection of novels, encyclopedia, and essays on various aspects of Queer Studies. Note that this is only a small fraction of the available print resources we have at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. If there is a specific title on display that you would like to borrow, please contact hssl.library@mcgill.ca.  

Living Queer Collection 

Our libraries are for everyone and open to all. We like to extend this philosophy to our collection management practices. In this spirit, if you have purchase suggestions that you believe we should add to the McGill Library, please reach out to the Liaison Librarian for LGBTQ+. Our collection is constantly growing, and the best way to strengthen it is collaboratively.  


Happy Queer History Month to all and feel free to reach out to Michael David MILLER, Liaison Librarian for LGBTQ+ Studies for any questions, comments or suggestions. 

A special thank you to our staff who helped assemble the physical and virtual displays. 

  • Vanja Lugonjic, HSSL Outreach Assistant 
  • Kristen Goodall, Library Assistant 

Where are all the Women in Wikipedia?

Wikipedia logo assembled piece by piece created by Giulia Forsythe.
Wikipedia. Created by giulia.forsythe

How many times did you consult Wikipedia in the last month, week or even today? Once, twice maybe more? Perhaps you saw that Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka recently won the 2021 Australian Open, googled her and stumbled across her Wikipedia page only to realize that hours later you were stuck in a Wiki rabbit hole learning about the “first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion”, the phenakistiscope. For whatever the reason, the English Wikipedia, and its over 6 million articles, is a gold mine of information, but not for all topics.  

The Gender Gap

There is a severe Gender Bias in Wikipedia, which manifests itself in multiple forms: most contributors are men, most biographies are about men, concepts that are of interest to women have less coverage, and articles written by women or about women are consistently questioned over those articles written by men or about men. Wikipedia has a Gender Bias toward Women. Despite these gaps, however, there are numerous projects that are working to help address them and offer more diverse coverage of subjects on and about Women.  

Female symbol. Created by Gustavb

Women in Red WikiProject 

The WikiProject, Women in Red, seeks to increase the number of biographies on Women in Wikipedia by transforming red links (links without a Wikipedia article) into blue links (links with a Wikipedia article.). Additionally, Women in Red seeks to increase the visibility of Women by adding Creative Commons licenses photographs to Wikimedia Commons that can then be used in Wikipedia articles or outside of the Wikimedia projects.  

Women WikiProject 

The Women WikiProject group’s goal is to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of subjects pertaining to women and invites contributions from people of all gender identities, sexual orientations, geographic locations and backgrounds to participate.  

Art+Feminism 

Art+Feminism is an international community that “strives to close the information gap about gender, feminism, and the arts on the internet.” The community is responsible for many edit-a-thons focused on closing these gaps in Wikipedia.    

Les Sans PagEs 

Et en français there is the Les sans PagEs group, that is dedicated to turning red (dead) links into blue (functional) links in pages about women, feminism, and other underrepresented subjects . The Les sans PagEs group intersects with the Women in Red WikiProject and the Art+Feminism group by expanding the work on the Francophone Wikipedia.  

How you can contribute! 

Contributing to Wikipedia is open to all! You do not have to be anybody special to correct, change or create entries in Wikipedia.  There are many ways to contribute: 

  1. Adding references (citations) to existing Wikipedia articles 
  1. Correcting punctuation in existing Wikipedia articles 
  1. Expanding and adding content (sections, paragraphs, etc.) to existing Wikipedia articles 
  1. Translating existing Wikipedia articles into other languages 
  1. Illustrating Wikipedia articles with Creative Commons licensed images 
  1. Creating a new Wikipedia article from the scratch 

Interested in learning how to contribute? Join me for an introductory workshop on contributing to Wikipedia on Tuesday 9 March 2021 from 12:00 to 13:00Registration required. The workshop will be given via the Zoom platform and will focus on contributing to the English-language Wikipedia. 

Can’t make it to the workshop? Wikipedia has numerous resources that can help you self-teach on how to contribute.  

For more information contact hssl.library@mcgill.ca.  

Joyeux mois des fiertés québécoises | Happy Québec Pride Month !

[English Follows Below]

Le Québec fête sa fierté LGBTQ+ et nous aussi ! #FiertéBiblio

L’août marque le mois des fiertés québécoises qui se déroule dans trois de nos villes du Québec :

Des ressources LGBTQ+ en masse à la biblio !

McGill University Library Pride photo 2016

En plus d’aller fêter notre fierté partout au Québec, le saviez-vous que la Bibliothèque des sciences humaines et sociales de l’Université McGill contient des ressources LGBTQ+ en masse ?

Voici quelques ressources vedettes pour commencer vos aventures dans les ressources LGBTQ+ fournies par votre bibliothèque préférée :

#FiertéLecture | Pavillon de la Bibliothèque Redpath

#FiertéLecture – exposition vivante

#FiertéLecture tout le mois d’août à la biblio (Pavillon Redpath de la bibliothèque)

Pendant le mois d’août, nous vous invitons également de venir consulter et emprunter des livres de notre exposition vivante Fierté Lecture | Pride Reading dans le pavillon Redpath de la Bibliothèque des sciences humaines et sociales à droit de l’exposition Summer Reading.

Au fur à mesure le mois d’août, je remplacerai les titres empruntés avec d’autres titres LGBTQ+ . Je vous ai également fait une  liste WorldCat avec une sélection de livres physiques, livres numériques, bases de données et films LGBTQ+ que vous pouvez également consulter et emprunter.

Si vous avez des questions, suggestions ou soucis, n’hésitez pas à me contacter, M.

Michael David MILLER (michael.david.miller@mcgill.ca), Bibliothécaire en études LGBTQ+ à la Bibliothèque des sciences humaines et sociales.

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