Collections Assistant Kirstan Schamuhn talks about how the Galt Museum & Archives collects objects and what the difference is between passive and active collecting, using a recent donation of buttons from Lethbridge Pridefest as an example.

The Galt primarily collects by “passive collecting.” This is when donors call the museum and offer to donate an object that has personal of community importance in their eyes. Once it is determined that the item might be of historical value to the community, collection staff will reach out and record the story of that item and begin the accession process.

But with active collecting, it’s a bit more intense. Active collecting means that staff identify key areas that are under-represented or that have no representation at all within the collection, and actively seek out groups and individuals who might be able to offer us more information or more items that shed light on that area.

The reason why active collecting is so important is that those are often histories and the stories that are unfolding in real-time. Those are the histories that are being created even one week, two weeks from the donation offer.

A great example is the large set of pins and buttons from Lethbridge Pridefest that were donated in 2019 as a result of our active collecting in preparation for our exhibit, "Inqueeries: 2SLGBTQ+ Histories of Southwestern Alberta." The buttons now form a foundation for the Galt Museum & Archives’ LGBTQ+ collection. This was an important part of the human history of southern Alberta that was not strongly represented before in the collection.

Donor Elisabeth Hegerat with Lethbridge Pridefest discusses the importance of the buttons, how they were made and distributed in Lethbridge and how she was impacted by being part of the Lethbridge Pridefest Society and how the buttons impacted the people around her at Pride.

Happy Pride, Lethbridge!

https://collections.galtmuseum.com/en/list?q=Pride+button&p=1&ps=20

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