Week 14 Prompt

Consider yourself part of the collection management committee of your local library, or a library at which you would like to work. You must decide whether or not to separate LGBTQ fiction and Urban Fiction from the general collection to its own special place. Some patrons have requested this, yet many staff are uncomfortable with the idea - saying it promotes segregation and disrupts serendipitous discovery of an author who might be different from the reader. Do you separate them? Do you separate one and not the other? Why or why not? You must provide at least 3 reasons for or against your decision. Feel free to use outside sources - this is a weighty question that is answered differently in a lot of different libraries.

I'm not sure where I fall on this issue, because it is seems to be a very nuanced thing. I'm leaning towards not shelving them separately, however, for a few reasons. I'm going to be focusing on the LGBTQ side of  the question, because they are both separate issues with different reasonings and ideas. I only have time for one in such a brief assignment. The articles I will link do mention this in regards to African American or Black fiction books. The main takeaway I get from those is that why are we shelving mystery books in a separate section just because the protagonist is black? Do we do this if the protagonist is Asian or Latino? Or a woman (of any race)? (School Library Journal, 2018).

1) Kids and teens might not want to be seen looking in the LGBTQ section. They might feel afraid of judgement or not ready or not safe to reveal their interest in those topics (School Library Journal, 2018).

2) Having a designated LGBTQ section might not be a good idea considering the incredible surge in book bans. If the parents can't see there is a whole section, there could be less local challenges (I'm not sure this would help with big groups, like the Moms for Whatever). (Don't Label Me, 2022).

3) I also wonder whether part of the reason this may not be best practice anymore is that, in the past, there weren't nearly as many books about LGBTQ individuals, so putting them in a separate section used to be more appropriate? If there are only fifty books in the whole library, it is much more difficult for people to browse for them in a sea of hetero romances or relationship nonfiction. In the past two or three years even, I've noticed a lot of the new books we are getting have characters that aren't straight, so it's not as hard to find them. One need only look at the new book shelf! One of the articles mentioned that some libraries with segregated collections were doing away with them (School Library Journal, 2018)

There are ways around this that could make it easier for kids to find these books without putting them in a different section. I considered that it could be good in a high school library for example, to have a sign of different authors who often write about LGBTQ characters so they can simply ask "Where are Leah Johnson's books?"

We could also make bookmarks with authors that we can hand out to people who ask for book suggestions, because sometimes they might be young people who don't want their parents to walk back to the desk and stand their while we try to look in the catalog for them, which can take a while depending on the situation.

School Library Journal (2018) suggested putting a certain color sticker on the side of these books so people in the know can find them, but they won't scream LGBTQ to parents or friends they may not be ready to talk to.

Sources

https://www.slj.com/story/shelving-debate-separate-or-integrate 

https://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2022/03/dont-label-me-lgbtq-ally.html