The Murray and Hong Special Collections is a unique aspect of the MSU Main Library with a rich history and important role on campus. On Oct. 1, 2026, the collections hosted a pop-up event in honor of LGBTQ+ History Month presented by Eli Landaverde, the special collections gender and sexuality librarian.
The Michigan State University Special Collections was first established in 1962 with the goal of housing, preserving and displaying special materials for research and study in the future. Special Collections was renamed in 2020 in honor of Dr. Stephen O. Murray and his life partner Dr. Keelung Hong. Murray was a sociologist, anthropologist and historian who graduated from James Madison College at Michigan State University in 1968.
The gender and sexuality collection began in the early 1970s as a way to protect gay, lesbian and transgender materials from vandalism in the main areas.
“Someone named Anne Tracy, who used to work in Special Collections at the time started collecting materials that were usually considered not worthy of study,” Landaverde said. “Her, as an out lesbian woman, thought there was a lot going on, particularly in the 1970s with the queer community so she single handedly built this collection from the ‘70s into 2000 when she retired.”
The collection explores queer history from every part of the world but the pop-up focused on pre-Stonewall materials. The 1969 Stonewall uprising is what led to the Gay Liberation Movement; however, the materials primarily focused on the Homophile Movement, one of the most successful representations of organized queer activism.
“What you see here [at the pop-up] is an example of how people live, the kind of literature that was available at the time, the kind of activism that was already ongoing in the queer community,” Landaverde said. “The different types of activism, the different groups that have always had very unique identities, that’s what the exhibit is about.”
The examples in the pop-up involved a variety of topics both affirming and non-affirming of queer people.
“It’s a little bit of everything and it’s a little about activism,” Landaverde said. “There [are] absolutely materials that [are] not affirming, that are talking about people like we need to cure them, so there is that non-affirming side of it because that’s exactly what the activism is reacting to.”
Landaverde wanted people to visit the collection to get a well-rounded view of the history of the community.
“That’s what we do,” Landaverde said. “We contextualize history, you’re not going to understand what’s happening today if you don’t know what happened before.”
The special collections pop-up was an important event at the MSU Library that gave students, staff and guests an education on essential LGBTQ+ history.
The Red Cedar Log is the official yearbook of Michigan State University, established in 1889. The award-winning publication is produced and distributed by students on the RCL staff—students with passions rooted in writing, editing, design, photography and business. Every year, their talents and the stories on MSU’s campus culminate in a collection of Spartan history.