By Ove Overmyer
In most professions, it really helps to be passionately in love with your work. Librarian, archivist and curator Brenda Marston is just one of those people.

As one of the country’s top curators, Marston has been in charge of Cornell University’s Human Sexuality Collection (HSC) since 1989. Even though Cornell is located smack-dab in the middle of New York State, the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley has been housing their history and administrative records in Ithaca since 1994. Brenda talks fondly of the GAGV’s collection, saying that “Rochester’s rich history is critical to our library. Cornell’s mission is two fold– national and upstate New York.”

Cornell Library’s Human Sexuality Collection was established with a broad mandate to record and preserve the cultural and political aspects of sexuality. The collection has become the main repository for the records of national gay rights organizations, including PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), the National Lesbian and Gay Health Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian and Gay Issues, and the Gay Media Task Force.

As curator of the HSC, Marston has, in the words of a former University of Wisconsin professor, “created space in the public sphere for a series of historical voices that were heretofore suppressed by a largely homophobic culture. Without the kind of resources Brenda has collected and profiled, these voices would not be heard, and thus, to a larger society, they would not even appear to exist. Brenda has, in effect, created a large part of the historical record that contemporaries and historians will have to study to understand the present.”

In 2004, the Cornell University HSC also became home to the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) historical records. The acquisition is a boon to researchers and underscores Cornell Library’s reputation as a primary resource for the study of human rights history in its many forms.

Founded in 1980, The HRC is the largest national organization working for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights. The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, with more than 460,000 members and a staff of over 100, works to advance equality based on sexual orientation and gender expression and identity.

“We are proud to be entrusted with HRC’s historical legacy,” said Marston. As the most extensive university collection of its kind, she added, “These records have tremendous research value.”

Also in 2004, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Alumni Council of the Wisconsin Alumni Association honored Brenda Marston with its Distinguished Alumni Award. The GLBT Alumni Council honors University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates who have shown an exemplary commitment to the GLBT community and who have demonstrated excellence in their life’s work as a self-identified GLBT person or ally.

Part of the genius of this collection is that it brings together so many varied and relevant collections, allowing researchers in Cornell’s reading room to gain perspective on national trends in sexual politics and gay culture over the course of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Valuable records of Latinos, African-Americans, and other people of color strengthen the collection, and its depth is further augmented by international periodicals and by the holdings of Cornell’s Rare Book Collection.

Research is made easier by the online Sexuality Research Guide, by special bibliographies, by a database of the popular fiction and periodicals, and by the research grants funded by the Zwickler Foundation.

John Noble, retired archivist for the city of Rochester and a past board member of the GAGV told The Empty Closet, “I have known Brenda for almost 20 years. No one in the archivist community had a better reputation for depth of knowledge, content and process. I was very comfortable delivering our documents to Brenda and to an institution that already had an established commitment to GLBT preservation.”

Even though Noble confesses it took a lot of persuasion and convincing of fellow GAGV board members to go with Cornell at the time, he knew the materials would be in the best of hands. “I really didn’t trust the University of Rochester or the County Historian back then to do the right thing. I knew Brenda would.” History is proving Noble was right on every count.

Remarkably, the HSC has no backlog. All of its collections are cataloged and available to researchers. Descriptions and box lists for each collection are available online.

Brenda is always eager to hear from people with new collecting ideas and is able and willing to talk with activists about their issues and concerns. The GAGV reacquainted itself with Brenda when the GAGV Library & Archives project got off the ground again in 2004. Gerry Szymanski, coordinator for the project said, “Brenda has been tremendously supportive of our efforts here in Rochester. She is such a valuable resource.”

The Empty Closet caught up with Brenda recently while she was taking a breather between semesters and before her annual Mecca to upper Michigan to visit relatives. Through a series of scattered phone calls and emails, we pasted together this interview for our readers.

EC: What is the HSC at Cornell?

BM: The HSC owes its existence to the efforts of two men, David Goodstein, longtime publisher of The Advocate, and Bruce Voeller, scientist and early leader of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Sharing an interest in the cultural and political contexts of sexuality, they sought an academic library that would begin collecting and making accessible the primary sources needed for this research. With the support of Goodstein and Voeller, and the institutional backing of the University, the Cornell University Library established the Human Sexuality Collection in 1988.

EC: So, what do you collect?

BM: The HSC is interested in how definitions of sexual identity shift over time and the way in which personal choices and public discourse about sexuality evolve. An advisory committee shaped a collecting policy based on researcher needs, other institution’s collecting policies, the initial strengths of the HSC, and Cornell’s academic programs. With this in mind, we decided not to collect actively in areas such as reproductive rights, sex work, sex education, sexual violence, and religion and sexuality since other institutions were already covering these fields and/or they were not particular strengths at Cornell. We have chosen to seek materials documenting two large topics: lesbian and gay lives and politics at the national level; and, changes in society’s attitudes toward erotica and pornography.

EC: How important is the GAGV’s archived materials to the general collection?

BM: The Gay Alliance and a lot of other organizations that exist in the Rochester area have significantly shaped our history. I am thrilled to have these records here.

EC: Where did most of the collection come from?

BM: The core of the collection came from the Mariposa Education & Research Foundation. Voeller, as President of Mariposa, had organized a bi-coastal effort in the early 1970s to save materials reflecting gay life and the gay rights movement in the US since WW II. Building on this base, Cornell has added records of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the Association of Gay & Lesbian Psychologists, and PFLAG. Many men and women have sent material, such as diaries from the 1930s or files relating to current political activism, that illustrates their lives as lesbians and gay men. We have numerous collections showing the effects of AIDS on both individuals as well as on the LGBT community as a whole. The Mariposa Collection documents changes in gay male erotica since the physique magazines of the 1950s. We have continued to collect samples of straight, gay and lesbian erotica, and especially papers of those who either produce erotica or take public stands about it.

EC: How big is the HSC?

BM: With over 600 cubic feet of manuscripts, 100 international and 900 US periodicals, and 5,000 books, the HSC continues to strengthen and diversify its holdings. We want to add collections documenting the emergence of transgender and bisexual politics; the range of feminist views on pornography; political debates over the definitions of marriage and domestic partnership; lesbians, bisexual women, and their health issues; lesbians and gay men with children; queer and questioning youth; as well as elders in the LGBT community. We seek more material on Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other people of color who choose sexual identities outside the mainstream. We’ll continue to document the impact of the AIDS crisis as well as the diversity of LGBT lives, work, humor, and sexuality.

EC: What is your biggest challenge?

BM: Our ultimate purpose is to encourage research in this field. All of Mariposa’s collections and subsequent additions are available for research use. The HSC is part of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, which is open to the public. The curator gives introductory tours, works with individual researchers, and helps instructors design projects for their classes to do here. Reference assistance is available by letter, e-mail or visit. The reference room is open 9:00-5:00, Mon-Fri, and 1:00-5:00, Sat. Current lists of manuscript holdings and periodicals, guides to individual collections, bibliographies, and descriptions of our book collections are available, some of them on the web.

EC: Are you still an activist at heart?

BM: Probably so. My partner and I were one of the original “Ithaca 50.” For those who do not know, we are fifty same-sex Ithaca couples who have lost several rounds in state court seeking permission to marry. The good fight rages on.

EC: Besides your professional aspirations, what and who are the loves of your life?

BM: I know its sounds cliché, but I love to garden. I am also working very hard with the “Ithaca for Obama” folks. My partner’s name is Sarah Simpkins. We are proud parents of two children, Grady, 8 and Matthew who is 2 1/2. Family life and being parents keeps us very busy—we find ourselves often helping our oldest son with his homework. We belong to the PTA and everything. Surprisingly, I’ve become real fond of “phonics” education, too.

For more information about Cornell Library’s Human Sexuality Collection, go to http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/HSC/ or contact Brenda Marston at 607-255-9557 or by e-mail at bjm4@cornell.edu.