{"id":16066,"date":"2017-07-01T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2017-07-01T16:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=16066"},"modified":"2025-05-21T10:30:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T14:30:28","slug":"beyond-glbt-book-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/beyond-glbt-book-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond GLBT Book Month: Don\u2019t Forget GLBTQ Families After June\u2019s Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last three years, <\/span>June is GLBT Book Month <\/span><\/a>has been observed by the American Library Association. Libraries of all types from across the country have participated through promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other queer-related literature to people of all ages. In its short history with ALA, GLBT Book Month has already had a large effect in getting GLBTQ books into the hands of our communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

GLBT Book Month is a great time to fill a librarian\u2019s quiver with arrows they can use all year long. Many wonderful people in the LIS community put together book lists and ideas that can be used throughout June to highlight these resources. But don\u2019t just sequester these ideas in the back of your mind and pack up all the rainbows when July 1 rolls around! <\/span><\/p>\n

Taking a moment to focus on a specific kind of literature is good. In the midst of busy professional lives, it is always helpful to have a reminder to highlight diverse voices and experiences that often get overlooked. But just as important as having these reminders, it\u2019s also important to remember to not segregate services to a particular underserved community to their \u201cspecial\u201d month. A library might miss an observance because it doesn\u2019t fit into the programming calendar. June is often busy in public libraries with the launch of summer reading. Many school libraries and media centers are closed with their schools during June. And sometimes, people just forget.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take the books that were highlighted last month and mix them into displays about other topics they connect to. Work them into a community story. Make sure that queer content is easily discoverable in the catalog and the library\u2019s digital resources. And for librarians who are new to highlighting GLBTQ resources for children, there are a lot of good resources to look out for. <\/span>Places to start looking include:<\/span><\/p>\n