Prelims

Half Title Page

LGBTQ+ Librarianship in the 21st Century

Series Page

Advances in Librarianship

Editors:

Paul T. Jaeger, University of Maryland, Series Editor

Caitlin Hesser, University of Maryland, Series Managing Editor

Editorial Board:

Denise E. Agosto, Drexel University

Wade Bishop, University of Tennessee Knoxville

John Buschman, Seton Hall University

Michelle Caswell, University of California Los Angeles

Sandra Hughes-Hassell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

R. David Lankes, University of South Carolina

Don Latham, Florida State University

Ricardo L. Punzalan, University of Maryland

Lynn Westbrook, University of Texas

Title Page

Advances in Librarianship Volume 45

LGBTQ+ Librarianship in the 21st Century: Emerging Directions of Advocacy and Community Engagement in Diverse Information Environments

Edited by

Bharat Mehra

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2019

Copyright © 2019 Emerald Publishing Limited

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78756-474-9 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-473-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-475-6 (Epub)

ISSN: 0065-2830 (Series)

Contents

Volume Editor Biography

In January 2019, Bharat Mehra joined the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama as Professor and EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice. From January 2005 to December 2018, he was a faculty member in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on diversity and social justice in library and information science (LIS) and community informatics or the use of information and communication technologies to empower minority and underserved populations to make meaningful changes in their everyday lives. He has applied action research to further engaged scholarship and community engagement while collaborating with racial/ethnic groups, international diaspora, sexual minorities, rural communities, low-income families, small businesses, and others, to represent their experiences and perspectives in the design of community-based information systems and services. In the position of the EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice he is very excited to have the opportunity to collaboratively shape the LIS area of the college-wide doctoral program through a concentration in social justice research.

About the Contributors

Jeanie Austin is a librarian with San Francisco Public Library’s Jail & Reentry Services program. Their publications largely concern the provision of library services to people held in state custody and the gendered, racialized, and ability-centric political and social systems that surround this work. Jeanie earned their PhD in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Donna Braquet is a subject specialist of Biological Sciences and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University Libraries, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and holds the rank of Professor. She has published several articles and book chapters on LGBTQ+ issues in higher education and librarianship. She established the first LGBTQ+ campus center at a public university in Tennessee and served as Director until the state legislature defunded the office and removed her from her position. She has resumed her full-time position as a Librarian and is currently working to create an archive of East Tennessee LGBTQ+ history called, Voices Out Loud.

Melinda F. Brown is Librarian for Inclusion Initiatives and Librarian for Women’s and Gender Studies, Vanderbilt University, received their B.S. in Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and their M.S.L.S. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They have been in the library field 23 of the 27 years they’ve been involved in bisexual+ activism. They were invited to the Bisexual Community Briefing at the White House in 2016 and most recently were a founder of the organization, Bi Tennessee. Their research interests include academic achievement and health/social disparities for bisexual/pansexual+ college students.

Eric Sancho-Brú is a graduate in Literary Studies at the University of Barcelona. His final dissertation was titled Trans Voices: Creation of Identities and Occupation of the Space in the Collective Imaginary Through Literature. He created and is responsible for the library collection “Trans Identities and Gender” at the Nou Barris Library in Barcelona. He is the co-author of an article in Item: librarianship and documentation magazine, nº66 of the COBDC. He is a trans activist for Trans*forma la Salut.

Kai Ewing (pronouns: they/them/their) currently works as the Reserves Processing Assistant and Evening Circulation Supervisor at the R.B. House Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). They received their Master’s in Library Science from the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at UNC-CH in 2015. Kai previously served as the alumni representative on the 2017–2018 SILS Diversity Committee and currently serves on the 2018–2019 UNC-CH Library Diversity and Education Committee. They were chosen as the first recipient of the UNC-CH LGBTQ Center Faculty & Staff Advocacy Award in May 2018 for their work advocating for LGBTQ+ populations and issues on campus and in the community. Additionally, Kai received distinction at graduation as a SILS Diversity Advocate Certificate Recipient. Prior to their contributions to this anthology, Kai published their Master’s paper, LGBTQ center resource library access: A case study, in the Carolina Digital Repository (2015). They can often be found giving library presentations around transgender needs in libraries – most recently at the 2018 Joyner Paraprofessional Conference (Supporting & Advocating for Trans & Gender-Variant People in Your Library) and in a Fall 2018 SILS course on YA Resources at UNC-CH (Gender Identity in the Library). Kai’s research interests include building, promoting, and maintaining LGBTQ+ collections; naming and resisting subtle/overt classification and subject heading biases; and the library’s role in advocating for services to all. See more about Kai at https://www.kai-ewing.com.

Gabriel Gomez earned his PhD in Radio, Television, and Film from Northwestern University in 1996. Since 1998, he has been a full-time faculty member at Chicago State University, an institution committed to social justice located on Chicago’s south side, where he is currently a Full Professor in the Information Studies Department. His numerous publications and presentations reflect research interests that span library science, technology in education, community service, and big data. He has received numerous awards and grants including two Fulbright Awards to India, that bracket more than a decade of interaction in that country through teaching, publishing, and numerous conferences. Throughout this time, he has also remained politically active with a number of groups dedicated to activism and non-violence. He is a union representative for Local 4100 of the University Professionals of Illinois, a union of the American Federation of Teachers, and also serves his local community as Co-executive Director of the Legacy Project Education Initiative, and as a board member for its parent organization, the Legacy Project.

LGBTQ Center of Durham is committed to improving the quality of life for LGBTQ+ people in and around Durham through programming, resources, and networks of support; by acting as a hub for Durham’s LGBTQ+ community; by sharing and affirming all LGBTQ+ lived experiences; and by educating our neighbors in order to enhance understanding of and sensitivity to LGBTQ+ issues. Since the Center opened, one of the most anticipated programs has been the LGBTQ Center of Durham Library. The library room at the Center has been designed to accommodate a diverse collection of LGBTQ+ focused books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, and zines to serve the local community. They have a small collection of materials on the shelves right now that users are welcome to peruse and read in-house. Once the library is fully up and running, community members will be able to check out materials. For more information about the Center, please visit https://www.lgbtqcenterofdurham.org/.

Deborah L. Lilton is the Librarian for English, African American and Diaspora Studies, and Theatre at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University. Deborah is one of the founding members of Bi Tennessee, and a Tennessee Prison Book Project volunteer. A grateful Spectrum Scholar and ARL Institute to Recruit a Diverse Workforce participant who received her M.L.I.S. from University of Alabama as an Institute of Museum and Library Services fellow in 2006, her varied research interests include psychological contracts of minority employees, prisoners’ right-to-read, and critical librarianship. She also has a M.A. in English from Rutgers University where she studied composition pedagogy.

Jessa Lingel is an Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and core Faculty in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Communication and Information from Rutgers University. She has an MLIS from Pratt Institute and an MA in gender studies from New York University. Her research interests include information inequalities and technological distributions of power. Her first book, Digital countercultures and the struggle for community, was published in 2017 by MIT Press.

Paul McIntyre is a graduate in English Literature from the University of Surrey. He is an activist who grew up in Apartheid South Africa and is the father of a trans daughter. He is interested in how multiple intersections including race, ethnicity, class and gender intersect especially with family and education. He is currently involved in three projects, one on trans families, another on changing education and the last a communication programme between prisoners and students.

Martin Morris joined the Library at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in 2012, where he currently holds the rank of Associate Librarian. He serves as a health sciences liaison to the Faculty of Dentistry, in the indigenous health program, and to various other departments. He was formerly the hospital librarian at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, and, before moving to Canada from the United Kingdom in 2011, a public librarian in Hertfordshire, England, where he focused on reference work. His current principal research interest is the improvement of library services to traditionally underserved communities, particularly LGBTQ+ communities, and with a strong focus on health sciences librarianship. He has also published on knowledge synthesis, and the spread of innovations in library information settings. Since 2017, he has been a member of the Health and Biosciences Section Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations, and of the Indigenous Matters Committee of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations.

Tony Nguyen is the Executive Director for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic Region in the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where he oversees the Regional Medical Library program. He has published articles on informational resources and outreach to LGBTQ+ populations and has taught Safe Space classes and the course “Improving the Health Safety and Well-being of LGBT Populations” throughout the region. He is an active member of the Medical Library Association (MLA) serving as co-convener of the LGBTQ Health Sciences Librarians Special Interest Group (2015–2017) and Secretary/Treasurer of the Research Section (2016–2018), MLA Leadership Education Curriculum Committee, and MLA News Technology Column Editor since 2017. He is currently Chair of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the MLA.

Ian Bermúdez Raventos graduated in English Philology at the University of Barcelona and has a Master’s degree in Translation from Rovira i Virgili University. He has translated Daniel Goleman’s Ecoeducación and part of Políticas Trans: Una antología de textos desde los estudios trans norteamericanos (selected essays from The Transgender Studies Readers). He has published a volume of poetry, Ser h(u)ome*∞(à), and a graphic novel, TRANsito. He created and is running a workshop with Eider Elizegi, DesenCaixa el gènere (Unboxing//unpacking Gender), to create awareness of the wealth of gender diversity.

Gregg A. Stevens is Senior Assistant Librarian and Health Sciences Librarian at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York. He is the liaison to the university’s School of Nursing. He previously worked as a Health Sciences Librarian at Mercer University in Atlanta and at Tallahassee Community College. He is an active member of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and its New York/New Jersey Chapter, and he has been a Convener of MLA’s LGBTQ Health Sciences Librarians Special Interest Group (2017–2019). He was selected as a participant in MLA’s Rising Star program in 2016–2017. His research interests include librarian participation in healthcare education and the reduction of LGBTQ+ health disparities through outreach and health information.

Emily Vardell is an Assistant Professor at the School of Library and Information Management at Emporia State University. She teaches classes on the foundations of library and information science, research methods, reference, consumer health, and health sciences librarianship. Her research interests are in the area of health information behavior with a focus on health insurance literacy and how people make health insurance decisions. Dr Vardell completed her PhD in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to returning for her doctoral studies, Emily was the Director for Reference and Education at the Louis Calder Medical Library at the University of Miami. Emily earned her Masters of Library Science from Texas Woman’s University in 2007 as a distance education student while working as a Fulbright Scholar in Austria. She began her medical librarian career as a National Library of Medicine Associate Fellow. Emily is an active member of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and has served as Chair of the MLA Public Health/Health Administration Section, Chair of the MLA Professional Recruitment and Retention Committee, and Section Council Liaison to the National Program Committee for the 2017 annual conference where she was responsible for organizing all the paper presentations. She is the Online Updates Column Editor for Medical Reference Services Quarterly, where she reviews a health-related database each quarter.

John Vincent has worked in the public sector since the 1960s, primarily for Hertfordshire, Lambeth, and Enfield public library services. In 1997, he was invited to become part of the team that produced the United Kingdom’s first review of public libraries and social exclusion (from which The Network, which he now coordinates, originated). John runs courses and lectures, writes, produces regular newsletters and ebulletins, and lobbies for greater awareness of the role that libraries, archives, museums, and the cultural and heritage sector play in contributing to social justice. He is particularly interested in supporting the work that libraries do with young people in care, with LGBTQ+ people, and with “new arrivals” to the UK. In September 2010, the book he co-wrote with John Pateman, Public Libraries and Social Justice, was published by Ashgate (now Routledge); and, in January 2014, he published LGBT People and the UK Cultural Sector … (also by Ashgate, now Routledge). In 2018, John’s report to Arts Council England was published, Libraries Welcome Everyone: Six Stories of Diversity and Inclusion from Libraries in England. In 2014, John was given a CILIP CDEG Special Diversity Award, and, in September 2014, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of CILIP.

Rachel Wexelbaum is Collection Management Librarian and Associate Professor at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She teaches faculty and students about open access and teaches courses on social media and LGBTIQ+ Studies to undergraduates. Currently, she is pursuing her doctorate in higher education administration at St. Cloud State University, where she is studying the impact of academic libraries on LGBTQ+ undergraduates. Rachel is the Editor of Queers Online: LGBT Digital Practices in Libraries, Archives, and Museums (Library Juice Press, 2015), and has written several articles and book chapters dealing with emerging library resources and services for LGBTIQ+ populations. Currently, Rachel serves on the IFLA LGBTIQ+ Special Interest Group, collaborating on a survey to develop international guidelines for LGBTQ+ library resources and services. She is also the Twitter administrator for Wikimedia LGBT+, a global thematic user group devoted to promotion, creation, and improvement of LGBT+ content on Wikipedia and providing support for LGBTQ+ Wikipedians.

Julie Ann Winkelstein, MLIS, PhD, is a librarian, writer, activist and teacher. She is the author of several book chapters, as well as journal articles, and she was a contributing author and primary editor of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) “Guidelines for Library Services to People Experiencing Homelessness.” She was also a founding member of the IFLA LGBTQ Special Interest Group. Julie has presented internationally on the topic of libraries and LGBTQ+ youth homelessness and, through an IMLS grant based on her award-winning dissertation, provided trainings and workshops for library staff on this topic. She worked for 20 years as a public librarian, in a range of roles, from jail and prison librarian to family literacy coordinator to young adult and children’s librarian. Julie takes an activist approach to librarianship, and her research, writing, and organizing work focus on the relationships between public libraries and social justice, including their roles in addressing homelessness, health disparities, and other social inequities. Julie believes social justice is the backbone of responsive and responsible library services.

Preface

Libraries have always been queer. This is true in a conceptual sense, where philosophers like Foucault (1986) have claimed libraries as heterotopic spaces, meaning portals into other worlds, sites of multiplicity, serendipity, and otherness. But it is also true in a concrete and grounded sense, with libraries as spaces where queer and questioning youth have explored their identities and desires, and where groups on the margins find sites of community and connection. That an enduring image of libraries in mainstream American narratives emphasizes quiet solitude or solid Middle Class normativity only demonstrates the radical capacity of libraries, which are able to support heteronormative visions of the good life while simultaneously offering a lifeline to people on the margins.

This book is also a lifeline. LGBTQ+ Librarianship in the 21st Century collects the scholarship and knowledge of librarians, academics, and activists, with the goal of providing a common vocabulary and a set of strategies to aid the work of queer librarians and patrons. Another goal of the essays gathered here is providing a form of solidarity and support, a multi-faceted message of encouragement and enthusiasm for the work that libraries and librarians can do and are doing in the everyday work of librarianship. Contributors to this volume offer accounts of successes and challenges of providing resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ (LGBTQ+) health and for supporting archival projects, of contributing to online resources like Wikipedia and developing best practices to support marginalized sexual identities. In the pieces gathered here, authors grapple with the responsibilities of working in libraries as social institutions, and also celebrate the opportunities for radical kinship between librarians, texts, technologies, and patrons.

The stakes are high. Around the world, extremist ideologies are becoming louder and receiving more attention. Hard-fought victories for queer visibility and political agency are at the risk of being walked back, and sanctuaries for queer organizing and education are being threatened, politically, culturally, and economically. In her book Kindred, Octavia E. Butler noted, “Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of ‘wrong’ ideas.” In the twenty-first century, libraries must continue to protect the knowledges, histories, and gathering points of the oppressed and marginalized. In the twenty-first century, libraries must fight to stay queer.