Gay Men’s Book Clubs vs. Wisconsin’s Public Libraries

1. Gay Men’s Book Clubs vs. Wisconsin’s Public Libraries Political Perceptions in the Absence of Dialogue Dr. John Pruitt University of Wisconsin-Rock County

2. The Concept of the Book Club • lifelong learning • polished communication • inspiration to write • unification of families

3. Arbiters of Cultural Authority

4. Grassroots Politics

6. The Wisconsin Public Library Mission Statement [Hedberg Public Library] strive[s] to inform, empower, enrich and entertain by fostering an atmosphere of welcome and accommodation; building and maintaining collections and services on diverse topics in various formats; providing maximum access to information and materials; meeting and exceeding the expectations of our customers. The Brown County Library system provides all residents of Brown County access to information and ideas from throughout the world in support of lifelong education, cultural enrichment, responsible citizenship, leisure activities, and economic development.

7. Wisconsin PublicLibrary LGBT Resources • Databases • Teen Health and Wellness • Opposing ViewPoints Resource Center • SIRS Knowledge Source • Books • Movies

8. Budgetary Difficulties “We do have some LGBT titles, but in a collection of less than 32000 books total, we don’t have the ability to provide a large number of titles in any category beyond the very general ones.” “Right now we do not host ANY book discussion groups, in our town of 1600 it’s been difficult to keep any discussion going.” 94 out of 263 Wisconsin library directors (34%)

9. Circulation Evidence “I have regularly purchased a variety of books with [the LGBT] population in mind and the number of checkouts after six months on the new shelf is always very small (0-3) and there is obviously no way to tell if the users were or were not gay, in order to use those statistics as a gauge.”

10. Political Difficulties “Our Library would certainly not be opposed to hosting a LGBT book group but given our population and our location, I’m thinking there might not be much of a demand for it.” “As a librarian in a fairly conservative community, I would have to consider that a LGBT book group may lead to the loss of some patrons and may or may not attract others.”

11. Negative Sites of Queer Literacy • Public/private schools and public libraries • teachers articulate homophobic, heterosexist, bourgeois social and curricular dynamics • dynamics establish and stabilize dominant social and political hierarchies, values, and norms • library collections and programs perform the same function

12. Positive Sites of Queer Literacy • Harvey Milk High School (accredited) • LGBT resource centers • Computer mediated web sites • Book discussion groups (never held in public libraries)

13. Madison Group

14. Milwaukee I

15. Milwaukee II

16. Green Bay

17. Kenosha

18. Exclusive Spaces • No women authors or members (even lesbians) • These men interact daily with the dominant capitalist, heterosexual American culture but choose to seek solace by secluding themselves with other gay men

19. Topical Interest and Competition • Absence of programs for gay men • Inconvenient meeting times • Emphasis on race and ethnicity • Lack of enough LGBT titles in group’s library system for all book club members

20. Safety in Numbers and in Private • in the collective gay memory, cultural and political institutions primarily deny inclusive rights • most forms of collecting as an institutional nod to the acquisition and maintenance of power structures • absence of dialogue

21. Win/Win through Dialogue? • public libraries may increase the diversity of their patrons and reinforce the philosophy that the library is a welcoming space open to all individuals in the community • gay men and the broader LGBT community have the potential to help these institutions diversify patrons, collections, and services