If I ask, will they answer? : Evaluating public library reference service to gay and lesbian youth

Abstract

For gay and lesbian youth, the public library can be a key resource for information about emerging and often-confusing sexual feelings. A good reference librarian can mean the difference between the youth fleeing the library or considering the library a helpful refuge. This article reports the results of an unobtrusive observation study in British Columbia in which a youth asked a gay and lesbian-related question at twenty different public library reference desks. The behaviors and verbal responses of the reference librarians were recorded afterward by the youth on an observation checklist based on the RUSA Guidelines for Reference Behavior. Most of the librarians scored acceptably in areas such as maintaining confidentiality but the study showed that improvement is needed in other areas such as conducting a good reference interview and awareness of relevant gay or lesbian book or Web resources. ********** In their groundbreaking 1990 book Gay and Lesbian Library Service, Gough and Greenblatt regret that they were unable to include a chapter on a very relevant, but as yet unexamined topic: accounts by library users of their experiences while looking for gay- or lesbian-related information in libraries. (1) It is the purpose of this research project to address this deficiency, which continues to exist fifteen years later. Specifically, the research investigates the level of reference service provided by public librarians for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT), or questioning youth in the greater Vancouver area. In recognition of the diversity within this community, the term GLBT will be used throughout the paper, except where quoted authors have chosen a different designation. Libraries are very important places for GLBT youth, as evident from the definition in Cassell's Queer Companion: LIBRARY: One of the main sites of self-discovery for lesbians and gay men, usually through the books but sometimes (mainly for gay men) through the washrooms. Many of us, particularly in the dark days before the Stonewall riot, remember going in to to check for references that would give some validity to the vague stirrings inside us we knew marked us out as different. Starting with dictionaries, where we could check the words we were beginning to learn, we could go on to other works to find images or descriptions of others like us. Often such a search has been depressing, and sometimes the only books which even touch upon same-sex eroticism are those which exist to warn us off it, but the mere act of looking serves as a catalyst for the formation of identity. (2) Carmichael supports this view in his book on lesbigay library history, where he writes that the common professional library saying that libraries change lives is often literally true for gays and lesbians as, through reading the evidence, they find that they are not alone. (3) He notes that this was the case for actor Stephen Fry, for whom volume after slim volume catalog[ed] the pansy path to freedom. (4) The theme of young adults searching for information about their awakening yet puzzling sexual identity appears repeatedly in gay and lesbian autobiographies. Often, the school library, a potentially threatening environment, fails to provide any clues, so the public library becomes the next stop. According to Greenblatt, the coming-out literature abounds with descriptions of individuals surreptitiously, yet expectantly, surveying [public] library shelves, searching for answers to their many questions about homosexuality. (5) How much help do GLBT youth receive from librarians in their search? Professional association codes clearly mandate that librarians practice equality when they manage collections and provide reference service, so one would expect high quality service. The American Library Association's (ALA) 1993 policy on access advocates free access to library collections and services regardless of gender or sexual orientation; the Reference and User Services Association's (RUSA) Guidelines for good reference service state that a successful librarian maintains objectivity and does not interject value judgments about subject matter or the nature of the question into the transaction. …

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