Faculty Success with Nathan Lachowsky: Making connections that matter

Nathan sitting in the Digital Scholarship Commons space
Nathan Lachowsky. Background images: (L). An image of a Coalition for Responsible Health Legislature protest on September 26, 1987 (Photo by Richard Banner, City of Vancouver Archives). (R). An AIDS Vancouver safe sex pamphlet, "What Are My Chances," from Spring 1984.

UVic Libraries is pleased to celebrate faculty success with a series of interviews featuring researchers and their recent collaborative projects

Professor Nathan Lachowsky and his community-based research team has worked with the library to create an open access collection of oral histories containing the personal stories of long-term HIV survivors and caregivers in British Columbia. This unique collection was created as part of the HIV in My Day community-based research project. UVic Libraries are providing hosting and long-term preservation of these materials to make certain that they are available for future scholarship and education. This is also an important knowledge mobilization effort, ensuring that the oral histories are returned to the communities that helped to create them. As UVic’s Special Advisor Health Research, Nathan is also working closely with the libraries on issues related to the ethical management of health research data.

What is your favorite place in UVic Libraries and why?

I love the Biblio! Having a place to collide with others, share a warm drink on a rainy day, and discuss some of the pressing issues facing our society. Overlooking the quad and Petch foundation, the library is the heart of our campus!

What is your favorite LC subclass (the first two letters at the beginning of a call number range) and why?  

RA - public aspects of medicine à la public health, hygiene, preventive medicine!

What is the most exciting or interesting experience that you’ve ever had in a library or archive?

As part of the Moving Trans History Forward conference, people from around the world come to UVic to visit the Transgender Archives. It was a humbling honour to witness the connection of people from a highly marginalized community with decades of history connected to their experiences and realities.

 

 Celebrate the success of UVic faculty: read more.