June is LGBTQ Pride Month and June 9-16 is Pride Week at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Here at the library we pride ourselves on providing access to information and entertainment for everyone. While all of our locations have materials for those wanting to read about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues, two of our library locations, the Main Library in Oakland and the Allegheny location on the North Side, have separate GLBT genre collections. These collections contain both fiction and nonfiction books and cover all areas of LGBTQ interest. There are mysteries, historical fiction, love stories, family dramas, and erotica. Nonfiction topics include travel, wedding planning, religion, medical, history (or herstory) and biographies.
For LGBTQ Pride month, I created a display for the First Floor, New & Featured. I presented a selection of biographies, memoirs, and tell-alls. Here are some selections from that display…
A Year Straight: Confessions of a Boy-Crazy, Lesbian Beauty Queen by Elena Azzoni
Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers by Cris Beam
Coal to Diamonds by Beth Ditto
Family Outing: What Happened When I Found Out My Mother Was Gay by Troy Johnson
Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity – Tracie O’Keefe and Katrina Fox, editors
The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar
Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders by Keith Stern
Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies by Mikey Walsh
Welcome to My World by Johnny Weir
And my absolute favorite title on this display…
Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever by Joel Derfner
Happy LGBTQ Pride Week and Month!
-Melissa M.
Eleventh Stack 
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While I appreciate the necessity and benefit of having a variety of reading material at the library, I can’t help but feel that segregating LGBTQ books to their own section doesn’t do much to promote interest. Those unaware of the impact lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on society and its history are much more likely to learn if books such as these were found in the sections they already frequent (Biography, History, Literature, etc.), rather than treated as a separate genre. Doing that entices only those already familiar with and interested in LGBTQ history and their contribution to society. Just my opinion.
R.F. – You’ll be happy to know that every single one of the items I pulled for this display came from the “regular” collection. Although we do have a separate section with a special budget to buy LGBTQ books, every other collection development librarian also purchases LGBTQ materials for their collections. No worries, they’re not only collected in one place here. You will find LGBTQ everywhere! Thanks for giving me to opportunity to point that out. – Melissa M.
That’s very cool indeed. Thank you for the explanation. :)
Fantastic post and EXCELLENT display! Well done!!!
Awesome display!
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