The Scottish Library & Information Council (SLIC) established the Public Library Quality Improvement Matrix (PLQIM), a quality assurance tool which states:
“Libraries must promote inclusion, equality and fairness and work positively with partners to facilitate communities of interest and encourage participation”.
The Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals (CILIP) begin their 'sexual orientation and libraries' ‘sexual orientation and libraries’ statement with:
“Libraries exist to meet the information, lifelong learning and leisure needs of all sections of the community, whether heterosexual, bisexual, gay or transgender”.
When looking at LGBTQ YA fiction we must ensure we provide access to resources that are representative of LGBTQ youth today, to enable all to have positive experiences when sourcing reading material. It is very likely that LGBTQ youth make up a proportion of YA using both public and school libraries in the
The difficulty for librarians is trying to provide appropriate LGBTQ YA material when supplier selection lists aren’t adequate enough. CILIP state that “mainstream suppliers may hold only limited relevant titles, and therefore care should be taken to make use of wider resources available via specialist bookshops/suppliers”. I'll list some bookshops and publishers later in this post. Filters on educational or council servers don’t allow searching on specific words, file types or url’s, then asking to have them unblocked to be able to searc. Librarians may have to source material in their own time, not their employers. Yes, we all probably do this on a daily basis but if you take into account all the resources we have to source due to a lack of work resources, it leaves little time to give each subject a true representation within our libraries.
So, to find a list of LGBTQ YA fiction.
I’ve been amazed by just how much material is actually out there in relation to YA fiction, I’ve found some great book lists, reviews and blogs. Daisy Porter is a public librarian who reviews LGBTQ YA fiction. Amanda Rudd is a sci-fi writer and crazed academic who has a list of LGBT YA fiction books. The Trevor Project have a great book and film resource which includes both fiction for LGBTQ youth and non-fiction resources on specific topics including mental illness and self harm. The American Library Association has Rainbow Books , a list released every January (since 2008) of LGBTQ books from birth to 18 years.You can even see the 2012 nominees on their blog.
If you're interested in the research side of LGBT provision then Elizabeth L. Chapman and Briony Birdi have written a report on attitudes to LGBT fiction for children and young people. To find a great list of resources on building collections, services to LGBTQ YA and other research, have a look at Teacher Librarian 2.0 for some great links.
I'm not a subject specialst in LGBTQ YA fiction therefore I searched and discovered two comprehensive LGBTQ ficiton lists, one from a librarian/researcher and the other from a LGBTQ YA author.
List 1 - Liz Chapman - Librarian/Researcher
The list can be found on the right hand side under 'downloads'
List 2 - Alex Sanchez - author
Searching through the lists and reading blogs and reviews some authors of note:
If you are looking for publishers and bookshops supplying LGBTQ fiction the links below may help you:
If you are a school or public librarian and are aware of other fiction resources that I've clearly missed then please leave a comment below.
If you are a LGBTQ YA and have a favourite book please leave a comment.
