In the post-Stonewall era, the role of libraries in providing information and services to LGBTQ individuals has been a topic of discussion among library professionals. Libraries can often play an important role for LGBTQ individuals looking to find information about coming out, health, and family topics, as well as leisure reading. In the past 50 years, advocate organizations for LGBTQ content in libraries have emerged, and numerous theorists have discussed various aspects of LGBTQ library service including privacy concerns, programming, collection development considerations and librarian/staff education needs, as well as special services for juvenile and teen patrons.
History
Commensurate with the LGBT rights movement in other arenas, LGBTQ activists began visibly advocating for greater representation in libraries in 1969. In 1970, the Task Force on Gay Liberation formed within the American Library Association (ALA). Now known as the Rainbow Round Table, this organization is the oldest LGBTQ professional organization in the United States. Barbara Gittings became its coordinator in 1971. She pushed the American Library Association for more visibility for gays and lesbians in the profession. She staffed a kissing booth at the Dallas convention of the ALA, underneath the banner "Hug a Homosexual", with a "women only" side and a "men only" side. When no one took advantage of it, she and Patience and Sarah author Alma Routsong (pen name: Isabel Miller) kissed in front of rolling television cameras. In describing its success, despite most of the reaction being negative, Gittings said, "We needed to get an audience. So we decided, let's show gay love live. We were offering free—mind you, free—same-sex kisses and hugs. Let me tell you, the aisles were mobbed, but no one came into the booth to get a free hug. So we hugged and kissed each other. It was shown twice on the evening news, once again in the morning. It put us on the map." In the early 1970s, the Task Force on Gay Liberation campaigned to have books about the gay liberation movement at the Library of Congress reclassified from HQ 71–471 ("Abnormal Sexual Relations, Including Sexual Crimes"). In 1972, after receiving a letter requesting the reclassification, the Library of Congress agreed to make the shift, reclassifying those books into a newly created category, HQ 76.5 ("Homosexuality, Lesbianism—Gay Liberation Movement, Homophile Movement"). Gay rights pioneer Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) advocated for a revolution in the inclusion and cataloging of LGBTQ materials in public libraries to create a more positive, supportive, informative environment for all members of the community. In the 1980s, literature began to emerge which examined information seeking behaviors of gay and lesbian library patrons. The 1981 book The Joy of Cataloging by Sanford Berman outlined the difficulties of accessing gay and lesbian books and information. In 1988, the Task Force on Gay Liberation released the "International thesaurus of gay and lesbian index terms," aimed at standardizing terms used for cataloging gay and lesbian-related library materials, and changing or removal of pejorative Library of Congress Subject Headings in relation to same-sex attraction and the LGBTQ community. Four years later, in 1992, Ellen Greenblatt and Cal Gough published the first collection of essays about the information needs of gay and lesbian patrons, entitled Gay and Lesbian Library Service. The work has since been revised as Serving LGBTIQ Library and Archives Users and remains influential. In 1992, American Libraries published a photo of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now the Rainbow Round Table) on the cover of its July/August issue, drawing both criticism and praise from the library world. Some commenters called the cover "in poor taste" and accused American Libraries of "glorifying homosexuality," while others were supportive of the move. Christine Williams, who wrote about the controversy in her 1998 essay A Lesbigay Gender Perplex: Sexual Stereotyping and Professional Ambiguity in Librarianship, concluded that in the mid-90s, the library world was "not an especially welcoming place to gays and lesbians." In 2007, the Rainbow Project Task Force began within the ALA to promote the presence of LGBTQ juvenile and young adult literature in library collections. The group now, now called the Rainbow Book List Committee maintains an annotated bibliography of LGBTQ titles for youth and teens, as well the yearly Rainbow List featuring the best of LGBTQ YA and children's titles. In 2010, the GLBT Round Table announced a new committee, the Over the Rainbow Committee. This committee annually compiles a bibliography of books that show the GLBT community in a favorable light and reflects the interests of adults. The bibliographies provide guidance to libraries in the selection of positive GLBT materials. After the passage of equal marriage in the State of New York in 2011, the Research Library at the Buffalo History Museum in Buffalo, New York, became the first known library in the United States to collect wedding memorabilia from legally-wed same-sex couples.
Challenges
Legal restrictions Historically libraries have had instances of being legally restricted from providing LGBTQ materials, in the United Kingdom Section 28 prohibited public libraries run by local authorities to 'promote homosexuality' leading to libraries scaling back what they delivered whilst the law was in place 1988–2003. The passage of House Bills 1557 and 1467 in Florida state legislature in 2022 raised concerns over a possible increase in limitations on LGBT materials in school libraries. Although neither bill explicitly targets such materials, faculty from schools across the state have reported being directed to remove previously accepted LGBTQ books from their classrooms and school libraries that could now be deemed harmful or offensive to minors under the bills. A proposal to expand HB 1557 to cover all school grades (the original bill prohibits certain materials from being presented to children in Kindergarten through third grade) is now under consideration.
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