The Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (ALGA) is a non-profit, community-based organisation of volunteers committed to the collection and preservation of material reflecting the lives and experiences of LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 Australians. The material collected is either produced by LGBT people in Australia or individuals and groups focusing on the Australian LGBT community. Among ALGA's collection are love poems, photographs, protest banners, posters, books and rare editions of gay and lesbian magazines. ALGA has archived tens of thousands of items from Australian queer

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...

 history. The ALGA collection is the biggest of its kind in the country and is located in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

.