“Nowhere to Turn, Nowhere to Go”Inclusive Library Services for LGBTQ* Minorities

Part 2: Being a More Visible Support for LGBTQ* Communities

Alvin M. Schrader, PhDProfessor Emeritus, University of Alberta, and Adjunct Professor, iSMSS

~ email me at alvin.schrader@ualberta.ca with suggested corrections and additions

This version has been expanded to incorporate recent research and professional events.

It is divided into two separate SlideShare files:

1. Library Service and Collection Policies and Strategies for Supporting LGBTQ* Communities

2. Being a More Visible Support for LGBTQ* Communities – What Some Canadian Libraries are Doing to Promote LGBTQ* Services, Inclusivity, and Community Engagement

Based on a presentation to the MLIS Course LIS 541“LIS Services in Culturally Diverse Society,”

School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta (Sept. 15, 2014), and revised from Slideshare Sept. 27, 2013 upload

This work is dedicated to those who lost their way because they had

nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, and to the librarians and the teachers

who give them hope

The presentation title comes from keynote speaker Glen Murray, first gay mayor of Winnipeg, who told us

at the 2006 British Columbia Library Conference about the importance of libraries to LGBTQ* youth and about a boyhood friend who had committed

suicide when they were 14 years of age because there was nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, to be able to talk

about his feelings and his fears.

Librarians are catalysts for social change and

personal transformation.

PART 2Being a more visible support for LGBTQ* communities – what

some Canadian libraries are doing to support and promote LGBTQ* inclusivity in collections, services, and community engagement

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Please send me information and visuals about your library’s LGBTQ* policies, initiatives, programs, and events so that I can add them to this

presentation in future updates. alvin.schrader@ualberta.ca

If there aren’t any now, how could you create LGBTQ* inclusive programs and

services at your library?

Promotion and Advocacy to Support LGBTQ* Communities

• Programming/Outreach Ideas• LGBTQ* Author Events (Adult, Teen)• Anti-Bullying Programming• Teen LGBTQ* Book Club (Online)• Story times for LGBTQ* Families• Pride Month LGBTQ* Poetry Reading• Contact your local high school's/middle

school’s GSA and offer to email booklists and to come in and book talk

• Observe various celebratory LGBTQ* events and Pride days/weeks/months, e.g., June is National LGBTQ* Pride Month; October is National LGBTQ* History Month; October 11 is National Coming Out Day

• Panel Discussion with LGBTQ* Leaders of Different Faiths

• Booth at Pride Festival

• June 2015 is first ALA-sponsored LGBTQ* Book Month

• LGBTQ* speed dating program• Safe Space stickers• Being visibly supportive as individuals

working the desk (lanyard buttons, etc)• Face-out displays that include LGBTQ*

titles• Booklists• Same-sex picture books are Easy Fiction

– not Children’s Fiction or Parent’s Resources – they’re for kids

• Be familiar with local organizations and community groups

• Diversity and sensitivity staff training• Be comfortable with variant terminology

- acknowledgement for most of these ideas to Emily Lloyd, “Serving Our GLBTQ Customers…” SlideShare November 17, 2010, www.slideshare.net/elloyd74/serving-our-glbtq-customers-at-the-library

What some Canadian libraries are doing …

• Emily Carr University Library• University of Victoria Library• University of Western Ontario Pride

Library• University of Saskatchewan Library• Brockville Public Library• Prince George Public Library• Edmonton Public Library• Edmonton Public Library and

Edmonton Public Schools

• Calgary Public Library• New Westminster Public Library• Kitimat Public Library• Red Deer Public Library• Surrey Public Library• Vancouver Public Library• Fraser Valley Regional Library• Toronto Public Library

Emily Carr University Library – Pride 2013

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University of Victoria Library

http://transgenderarchives.uvic.ca/https://www.facebook.com/UVicTransArchives

University of Victoria Library

http://transgenderarchives.uvic.ca/https://www.facebook.com/UVicTransArchives

The UVic Archives has been actively acquiring documents, rare publications, and memorabilia of persons and organizations associated with transgender activism since 2007.

University of Western OntarioPride Library

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~ established in 1977, first of its kind at a Canadian university (shared catalogue access and housed in but independent of UWO Library)

~ a library, an archive, a social space, and a resource centre for academic curricula

~ mandated to …

• make accessible information and materials by and about LGBTQ communities

• foster LGBTQ studies at UWO across disciplinary and institutional boundaries in a coalition-building environment

• counteract censorship on all fronts by making LGBTQ texts of all kinds accessible in an academic context fostering dialogue, debate, and criticism

University of Saskatchewan LibrarySaskatchewan Resources for Sexual Diversity

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Celebrating a history of diversity: lesbian and gay life in Saskatchewan, 1971 - 2006. A selected annotated chronology, by Neil Richards, 2005-2006

Gay Canada: bibliography and videography, 1984-2008, comp. Alex Spence, rev. 2009Perceptions: the first twenty-two years, 1983 – 2004: an index to the Canadian gay and lesbian

newsmagazine, comp. Alex Spence, 2005

University Archives and Special Collections ResourcesSaskatchewan theses of LGBT interestTykie's Comin Out by Jeffery StrakerAV and microfilm collectionsCanadian gay and lesbian collectionQueer mystery and detective fictionGay, lesbian and transgender pulp literature

Brockville Public Library – Pride 2012, 2013, 2014

Brockville Public Library – Pride 2012, 2013, 2014

Brockville Public Library – GSA/QSA

Brockville Public Library – GSA/QSA Events in Partnership with PFLAG 2012-2014

Spring 2012- City-wide GSA, providing safe space and connecting students from the 3 local high schools; inaugural Pride Week planning committee with representatives from PFLAG and Brockville City Council; Pride Week potluck; LGBTQ Summer Reads list

Spring 2013- youth initiated name change from GSA to QSA (Queer Straight Alliance) to 'take back' the term 'queer’; Youth Discussion Panel with local community service providers including Victim's Services, school board trustees and teachers, and local government reps; Pride Week planning; family game night and potluck; LGBTQ/Pride in-house display; LGBTQ Summer Reads List; LGBTQ bibliographies available (not exhaustive

Spring 2014- Youth Discussion Panel; QSA as a weekly Youth Drop-in with local CYW volunteer facilitator; Pride Week planning involvement; Pride Week movie; LGBTQ/Pride in-house display

http://virtual.recorder.ca/doc/Brockville-Recorder-and-Times/brockville-this-week-july-11/2013070901/22.html#22

Youth Initiative of the Year Award, A Healthier You Awards 2012

Programs and Services Award, British Columbia Library Association 2014

Prince George Public Library Library Teen GSA Program Awards

“Library earns two awards,” Prince George Citizen, May 4, 2014 www.princegeorgecitizen.com/news/local/library-earns-two-awards-1.1020831

“A Teen Programming Success Story: Library Gay-Straight Alliance,” by Amy Dawley, YAACING, Newsletter of the Young Adult and Children’s Services Section of BCLA, Winter 2014, pp. 11-12

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#label/lgbtq/145f213043a70717?projector=1

Prince George Public Library – Pride 2014

Prince George Public Library – Pride 2014

Social activities, facilities movie nights; board game night; visit to YMCA’s Youth Rec Room; Karaoke night; Project Runway Fashion Challenge; visit to Aquatic Centre for swimming night; crafting: locker magnets, advocacy button making, collaborative art projects; murder mystery night; gender neutral washroom

Groups, workshops, guest speakers, special celebrations UNBC Pride Centre Society “Queer Representation in the Media”; screening of “The Bully Project” and anti-bullying discussion; trans youth presentation; Community Policing presentation; Wendy Young Community Arts Council fused glass pendant; Tess Healy “Queer Youth in History” presentation; sexual health workshop by Mary Jackson; “Reaching Out: Suicide Prevention and Awareness” workshop by Crisis Centre; presentation by Councillor Murry Krause;

Prince George Public Library GSA Events 2013-2014

Masqueerade Teen Dance in October; Christmas celebration; Parents of Gender Creative Children support group; Gender creative parent and child support group drop-in program, http://www.lib.pg.bc.ca/content/gender-creative-parent-child-support-group

Edmonton Public Library – Pride 2014

    

 

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~ 700 people visited the 2014 EPL Pride booth~ 100+ people went to the 2014 EPL craft station family event~ LGBTQ* Speed Dating program

Edmonton Public Library – Pride 2014

    

 

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Edmonton Public Library – Makerspace 2015

    

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Edmonton PL and Edmonton Public Schools – Resource Guide (2nd ed. 2014)

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Calgary Public Library – Pride 2012

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New Westminster Public Library – Pride 2014

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- new reading list (4th yr.)- lecture on the new

Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony housed at Simon Fraser University

- front lobby display case- LGBTQ titles

acquisitions

New Westminster Public Library – Pride 2014

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Kitimat Public Library – Pride 2014

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Red Deer Public Library – “Youth Pride Fridays”

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“Hello Everyone! I am the Teen Services Librarian at Red Deer Public Library. Every second Friday, we host a youth Pride meet up here in the mezz (Teens at RDPL). Everyone aged 'early-teen to early-20's' is welcome. It's a really fun, inclusive hangout (games, food, friendship, fun). No registration necessary, and a library card is not needed to attend.” – Amy Lynn, Facebook, 2015

Fraser Valley Regional Library – Activities

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The 25 libraries in 15 FVRL member municipalities are at the early stages of implementing and participating in LGBTQ initiatives. Activities so far include:

Staff workshops on LGBTQ people – 230 participants in four workshops that covered language, concepts, raising awareness of management and library services staff

Readers advisory workshops on Teen and Tween GBLTQ fiction for FVRL staff

Many FVRL libraries display “Never Assume” or rainbow stickers/posters

Many FVRL libraries had PRIDE displays during PRIDE week.

Surrey Public Library – Pride 2014

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LGBTQIA ReadsGet your read on at the

library today!

w w w . s u r r e y l i b r a r i e s . c a

Surrey Public Library – Pride 2014

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http://www.surreylibraries.ca/research/5430.aspx

GLBTQI Resources on the SPL website

Vancouver Public Library – Pride 2014

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Vancouver Public Library – Pride 2014

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Vancouver Public Library – Pride 2014

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Vancouver Public Library – Pride 2014

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Vancouver Public Library – Pride 2014

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Vancouver Public Library

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Toronto Public Library – World Pride 2014

Yorkville Branch

Toronto Public Library – World Pride 2014

Toronto Public Library – World Pride 2014

Toronto PL – World Pride 2014

Toronto PL – World Pride 2014

Toronto PL – World Pride 2014

Toronto PL – World Pride 201417 events “Welcoming the World to Pride,” May 7-June 28

Sexual diversity and the Sochi OlympicsBranded by the Pink TriangleSinging Out—Pride. Music. Belonging.The Rainbow Railroad: Fleeing Anti-Gay PersecutionGerrard Ashdale Library presents… Comedy Night at Lazy Daisy’s CaféA Defining Moment for Gay and Lesbian Activism: Toronto in the 1970sWorld Pride Comedy NightKamal Al-Solaylee: 2013 Toronto Book Award WinnerA Night with Sky GilbertShyam Selvadurai50 Years of Toronto PrideLGBTQ Literary Speed Dating (ages 19-35)Fashioning LGBTQ Identity: Visibility, Representation and CommunityThe Science of Gaydar: Making Sense of Sexual Orientation from Limited

Perceptual CuesBook Club: World Pride EditionLGBTQ Film EveningRainbow Family Stories

Toronto PL Pride Alliance – Terms of Reference

TPL Pride Alliance is a volunteer-run group of employees. Membership is open to but not limited to staff who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, 2-spirited, queer, questioning and their allies.

Vision: A work force that promotes, celebrates, and values diversity.Values: TPL Pride Alliance champions the following values: Equality. Inclusiveness.

Respect. Transparency.

Goals and Objectives: 1. To support and promote a workforce that reflects our city’s diverse communities.2. To support an inclusive environment in the Toronto Public Library for LGBT

employees and their allies.

Priorities: 1) Provide social and networking support for staff; 2) Increase and foster awareness of LGBT issues; 3) Plan and execute TPL Pride Alliance presence in the annual Pride Toronto celebrations.

- approved by TPL Directors HR November 2012

In a separate SlideShare file, see…

PART 1

Library service and collection policies and strategies for supporting LGBTQ* communities in international and national contexts, including extensive professional resources in all media

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~ To my colleagues who guided me to useful research and who patiently reviewed earlier drafts – Sandra Anderson, Michael Brundin, Toni Samek, and another who must, sadly, remain anonymous for security reasons.

~ To all of the library staff across Canada who shared with me information and images about their library initiatives to support LGBTQ* communities. My hats off to you!

~ To Toni Samek, a special thanks for giving me the opportunity to develop and present my ideas over several years to her graduate seminar.

~ And to my life partner and best friend Tony Thai, who makes my research work worthwhile.

WITH THANKS!

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