“Don't Say Gay” in Alabama: A taxonomic framework ofLGBTQ+ information support services in public libraries—An exploratory website content analysis of critical resistance

Abstract

The American state of Alabama has recently developed a national notoriety as a toxic place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning/queer (LGBTQ+) people owing to several laws that have supported human rights violations and denied their civil liberties. This case study assesses how Alabama's public libraries are providing culturally relevant web access and coverage to LGBTQ+ information to meet their needs/concerns in a region that is oppressive to sexual and gender minorities. In the process, it illustrates public libraries' emerging role as simultaneously impotent to the majority's infringements, while finding creative ways to serve as counter narrative spaces of resistance representing “voices” of, and from, the margins. This exploratory assessment is based on documenting web‐based information for LGBTQ+ people in Alabama's 230 public libraries and identifies seven intersectional examples of information offerings, categorized into three groupings: (a) information sources (collections, resources); (b) information policy/planning (assigned role, strategic representation); (c) connections (internal, external, news/events). It provides a taxonomic framework with representative examples that challenge the regional stereotype of solely deficit marginalization. The discussion provides new opportunities to build collaborations of sharing within Alabama's public library networks to better address LGBTQ+ concerns and inequities in their local and regional communities.

Drag story hour at public libraries: the reading child and the construction of fear and othering in Swedish cultural policy debate

“…Several states have also proposed and passed anti-drag bills (Anderson, 2024). Furthermore, previous research shows how some US libraries are inhibited from engaging in work to include materials and resources for the LGBTQ population due to unfavorable or antagonistic local political climates (Mehra and Jaber, 2023). Also, research into the perceptions and experiences of DSH at public libraries point to mixed but highly polarized reactions.…”