Unshelve your collection with Pride!

 It's June and time for displays for Pride to be placed in libraries and on library social media. There will be plenty of online lists and posts with titles by LGBTQ+ authors. Don't forget to check the Lambda Awards and the Stonewall Book Awards for ideas. While you are assembling books for your displays and lists, watch that you are including as much of the LGBTQ+ community as possible. You can use the various flags to identify books that focus on a particular community to help those patrons who are not ready to ask for help. Creating lists and bookmarks with suggested titles that patrons can access online or pick up is another way to support LGBTQ+ members of your community. 

History and biographies are popular in displays for any cultural heritage or awareness month but don't forget cooking, fiction, poetry, art, and films. Make your the titles you select as broad and possible and expansive. Remember, as I frequently say, your patrons are as curious as you are so don't sell them short. 

Here are some lists to get you started: 

Penguin Random House - The Ultimate LGBTQ+ Book List

Reddit - Book rec for pride month? 

Brooklyn Public Library - Pride Month Books for Adults

Hamilton East Public Library - A Reading List for Pride Month

Goodreads - Listopia > LGBTQIA+ books to read during pride month!!

UCF Libraries - LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

Pride 2024

 While I did post about #QueerAllYear, June is when Pride displays appear in most libraries. During this particular time, there is stress is some libraries about setting up a Pride display given the current political climate. Talk to your supervisor, your administration and work with them on creating the display that will best serve your community. It can be difficult but it is often a question of adjusting what you set up to both promote your collection while not having your June spent arguing with bigots rather than celebrating the LGBTQ community. Ideally, the would not have to make any changes but I understand that sometimes it will be necessary. 

As with all these celebratory months, please focus on something other than the darkest parts of history and tragedy. Include biographies about inspirational LGBTQ people and their successes. Do a display with queer artists, poets, and musicians. There are queer cooks, politicians, and humorists.  While there are always struggles and painful moments, every community is more than that.  

There are plenty of lists and articles out there. Use them pull out fiction by LGBTQ authors who your patrons have not discovered yet. Look past literary fiction to other genres and set up a display with romances, horror, and mysteries. Science fiction and fantasy also have a lot of great works by queer authors. 

Books for younger children and teens are often those which cause the most tension. I usually put most of the displays for these months in a central walkway, outside of the children’s department. This allows those who want and need the books to discover them, learn that we include them, and take them without asking for help or searching. The young adult fiction usually empties the fastest. 

Post your great Pride or Rainbow book month displays and tag me in your posts so I can see them.