Back in October, I wrote about ways to improve library service to GLBTQ youth. Here, again, are some of the suggestions and how my library has been working on them this fall:

• Bolster your collection with recent and high-quality books and increase visibility with paperback copies. On top of our usual collection development based on new book reviews, we purchased a number of backlist titles to round out our collection, especially in the junior high paperback section.
• Make a recommended reading list of GLBTQ books. Our “Gay and Lesbian Books for Young People” list is now available in the library and on our website.
• Make queer books visible in a non-stigmatizing way. In addition to making more of an effort to include GLBTQ books in our junior high fiction displays, we made two special displays highlighting our offerings: “Different Families/Same Love” and “Just Be Yourself.”
• Improve access through the library catalog. That’s what we’re starting to work on now, in what I’m calling My Big Fat Queer Cataloging Project.

In my original post, I described some of the problems with current catalog subject headings for GLBTQ materials. I won’t rehash them now, but instead I’ll describe the basic steps I’m following.

1. Print out the catalog records for all books on the GLBTQ list.
2. Study current Library of Congress queer subject headings, identifying those most applicable to the books in our collection. I found two very helpful lists of headings, a (slightly older) alphabetical list from Dartmouth and a (more recent) topical list from Emory.*
3. Identify specific headings that apply to each book and would improve access through library catalog searches.
4. When in doubt, read the book to make that determination.
5. Suggest additions to our cataloging staff.

Parsimony is a huge deal in cataloging, sometimes to the point of stinginess, in part because time was you could only assign a set number of subject headings to an item. This is no longer the case, fortunately, so we can add subject headings without taking any of the current ones away.

Still, you don’t want to dump a bunch of headings on an item. At least, I don’t. Which means you need to try and pick the best headings, the ones that are just the right level of generality or specificness, the ones that best match what patrons are searching for with what they actually want. The additional headings I’ve most frequently suggested so far are “gay youth,” “lesbian youth,” and “children of gay parents.”

My assumption is that patrons looking for these books are more likely to search for “gay” than “gays” (yes, the catalog search engine really is that picky) or “homosexuality,” which is how most of these items are currently cataloged. A subject search for “gay” will turn up a crapload of books, including those about “gay youth,” “gay teenagers,” “gay high school students,” “gay parents,” and gay everything else. But at least the books won’t totally fall through the cracks.

I’m less sure about “lesbian youth,” and I would love people’s opinions on this one. Should a book about “lesbian youth” also get a “lesbians” subject heading (same picky search engine problem)? Should it get a “gay youth” heading as well?
 

*For those of you who don’t know much about cataloging, the Library of Congress is continually creating new official subject headings. If a new book comes along that doesn’t fit the current subject headings, they’ll create a new heading that does. (It’s not quite that simple, but that’s the general idea.)

Anyway, sometimes you’ll be frustrated that there isn’t that “perfect” subject heading for the book at hand. Other times you wonder what-the-heck book prompted the need for such a weird and specific subject heading. Some examples I turned up today:

• Astrology and homosexuality
• Gay labor union members
• Lesbian Girl Scouts
• Lesbians on postage stamps (also Gay men on postage stamps)
• and, near and dear to me, Bisexual librarians.