Images: Courtesy of http://www.queeryparty.org/
Join the Que(e)ry Librarians for Story Time at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division! Friday, March 1, at 7:00pm, 27 Orchard St.
Gather around and hear queer literature for children and young adults, read by librarians and authors (to be announced), enjoy some kool-aid and animal crackers beer and wine, and browse the bookstore! More info, RSVP on Facebook.
“Nothing is more impotent than an unread library” says Waters in the 6th chapter of his book Role Models (2010), one of my personal favorite reads of the summer. Here, Waters confesses his love and admiration for his friends and heroes Johnny Mathis, Leslie Van Houten, fashion designer Rei Kawakubo and others, including the authors of and characters featured in the following books: 
And guess what?! Brooklyn Public Library has them all! Well, all but one. I checked.
Waters advises his readers, “You should never just read for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgemental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick ‘hard books.’ Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for God’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.”
A party for queer librarians and those who love them!
You don’t have to be a queer librarian; you just have to dance with one!
PLEASE SHARE AND REPOST WIDELY!
The prosecutions of libraries, bookstores and museums have become a popular response to artistic expression that some Americans find offensive. Censorship harms all groups working for social change by silencing (making invisible) information (words, ideas, images) pertaining to or from those people already effected by legislated morality. Censoring disagreeable ideas will not make the disagreeable realities go away, but distracts people’s attention from addressing the real causes of social ills.
On December 1st, David Wojnarowicz’s video “A Fire in my Belly” was pulled from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Hide/Seek is a groundbreaking exhibition, one of the first to celebrate GLBT artists, their images, and their relationships in a major institution. After a single protest, from a small Catholic-based right wing organization, and under the threat of cuts to cultural funding by Representatives John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the Smithsonian Institution decided to pull the video. There was no dialogue, no debate. As it was in the culture wars of 1980’s, Wojnarowicz’s work was mischaracterized, this time as an attack on the Catholic Church, and used as to elicit support for anti-gay sentiment and cuts to social, cultural, and educational funding.
A group participates in a "lie-in" near the Student Center at Rutgers University, in support of safe places for gay students. (Erin Vanderbeg/AP)
Thank you to Marie C. Hansen, NYPL Librarian (Jefferson Market Library) for her post Gay Teen Suicide: Resources for LGBTQ Teens, Their Families, & Friends! In light of the tragic pattern of young people committing suicide because of repeating bullying about their sexual orientation Marie reminds her readers that the New York Public Library is a place where all people, of all genders and sexual orientations, are welcomed. Among the resources recommended:
Trevor Project : 24/7 crisis hotline for LGBTQ youth
It Gets Better Project: Wisdom from LGBTQ Adults to LGBTQ Teens
Additional resources:
Im From Driftwood: True LGBT stories from all over the world
Embodiment: A portrait of Queer life in America
dear NYC,
come out, come out wherever you are for QUE(E)RY II: ON RESERVE
This is a benefit, so there is a cover, but it is suggested donation only and no one will be turned away for lack of fund$. Proceeds go to The Leather Archive & Museum (CHI) and The LGBT Community Center Library & Archive (NYC).
The first Que(e)ry party/fundraiser was tons of fun so don’t miss out!
more info: http://queeryparty.tumblr.com/
This sort of institutionalized recognition of the importance of Black Queer scholarship is quite exciting. Thank you Professor Matt Richardson, UT subject specialist Lindsey Schell, and School of Information student Kristen Hogan have banded together to create and launch this fabulous new library resource for UT students and Austin community members!
“Current information organization practice frequently obscures access to materials by and/or about historically marginalized communities, particularly lesbian, gay, and transgender communities of color. This erasure results in a lack not only of appropriate materials in users’ search results, but also of sufficient context for the incomplete list materials generated by a search,” writes Kristen Hogan in the BQSC guide, which can be found here.
The Black Queer Studies Collection is a cataloged creation that makes searching for works by queer people of color much less time consuming. With the addition of this new tool to the University’s library system, a localized note (MARC field 590) will now appear in the online catalog listings of works by, for and about Black Diasporic LGBTQ people. The note is being added to and improves access to records in the UT Libraries Catalog for materials by and about Black Diasporic LGBTQ people; the collection includes works in the circulating and archival collections, multiple formats, and multiple languages. The Black Queer Studies Collection is a groundbreaking project in librarianship in that it addresses standard obstacles posed by the Library of Congress Subject Headings and information retrieval systems to locating materials by and about Black Diasporic LGBTQ people.
The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and queer communities.
Their mission statement has been consistent over the past six years:
“The mission of the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is to establish a “living history” archive of past and present queer zines and to encourage current and emerging zine publishers to continue to create. In curating such a unique aspect of culture, we value a collectivist approach that respects the diversity of experiences that fall under the heading “queer.”
The primary function of QZAP is to provide a free on-line searchable database of the collection with links allowing users to download electronic copies of zines. By providing access to the historical canon of queer zines we hope to make them more accessible to diverse communities and reach wider audiences.”
Browse the archive here.
Expected (and highly anticipated) in early 2011 is Series on Gender and Sexuality in Librarianship (Emily Drabinski, Series Editor)!
Forthcoming in the series will be:
Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians, edited by Tracy Nectoux
Documenting Feminist Activism, edited by Lyz Bly and Kelly Wooten
Gender, Sexuality, Information: A Reader, edited by Rebecca Dean and Patrick Keilty
Caitlin is a queer, a Jew, and a librarian (sometimes even a queer Jewish librarian) living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She wears different clothes and uses props while dutifully playing her role as each. Sometimes she forgets to change costumes which can be confusing for both herself and others. 
