Hello everyone! We hope this finds you all well. Please feel free to read this as a pdf document.

Sparrow Artwork by Craig Humpston

Archiving is Activism!

Sorry we haven’t been in touch for a while. But we have been busy!

Re-organising the Archive

We realised the need to organise our 10,000s of curated items more meticulously than just by initial letter and ad-hoc descriptions of what sorts of materials are in boxes. So we have undertaken a major audit and re-organisation so that we can locate every single item (whether scanned in or not) within a specific box. 344 boxes later we are up to ‘S’ and by the New Year should have the lot completed. Once the information is uploaded onto the catalogue, you will be able to request items at much shorter notice and be able to plan your visits or requests for digitisation more efficiently.

Working with the Notts Queer History Archive

Following our exhibition Under the Rainbow at Broadway last year, we have continued to work closely with CJ de Barra, curator of the Notts Queer History Archive and author of the brilliant Queer Nottingham 1960-1990, just published by Five Leaves (£12.00). CJ made good use of our archive, and the partnership has extended into stalls and exhibitions at NQHA events and plans for further collaborations. We are also holding on to the actual NQHA artifacts until such a time as the project secures premises of its own. Please also contact CJ if you have LGBTQ+ stories or artifacts of your own to share.

Oct 25 Document of the Month

As the Labour government revives plans for ID cards, using the supposed ‘illegal working problem’ as their excuse, we revisit Nottingham Defy ID magazine. It was a campaign in 2008, co-ordinating nationally, producing six newsletters. You can find them via our website, and see also this local leaflet linking the two issues of migration and ID, reprinted on pages 21-23 of the 2008 edition of the AF’s Defending Anonymity pamphlet.

Fundraising for the Sparrows’ Nest

Like everyone running volunteer community or radical projects, we are finding it a bit difficult to cover our costs at the moment. It’s all for good reasons – we have been given SO much great stuff that we have had to buy even more shelves and archiving boxes. We also have on-going printing costs for when we do exhibitions, staffs and leafletting. We will soon need to raise up to £800 per year to store materials off site. So, we need your donations more than ever, even if it’s just a small one-off via the ‘Donate’ button on the website, or a standing order of only £1.00/month. And if you can afford to increase an existing standing order, that would be wonderful.

Bank name: Unity Trust Bank
Recipient: The Sparrows Nest Library and Archive
Sort code: 60-83-01
Account: 20379287

Planning for future events

The next time we’ll be out and about will be at the Manchester and Salford Anarchist Bookfair, on November 8th at the brilliant People’s History Museum. If you know people in Manchester, why not send them along?