BARBARA GITTINGS

J·m a girl-woman, 19, discovering some kind of gay group in main program event. We quickly got a that all is not heterosexual with ____· -· If you know of no reputation for putting on programs that me and that the only person I've such group, could you put me in appealed to librarians' professional loved at all was a woman. I need touch with someone who might? interests but are also entertaining. information, more information, I am 18 and going absolutely Examples "The Children's Hour: Must and a belief that there are others · insane playing straight. I have Gay Be Grim for Jane ;rnd Jim?" like me with a need for other one friend who is homosexual (about negative gay themes in teenage kinds of love stories. (we are not lovers) and that's novels); "Serving the Fearful Reader" • I found your address in The Gay just not enough. Please help me. (skits illustrating gay-related problems Crusaders and right now it in reference service); "Gay Film seems you're my only hope. I Festival" (18 documentary gay films); have decided to search out a Letters like this have come to our "An Evening with Gertrude Stein" gay group and it is close to organization for years. For thousands (featuring Pat Bond); and "It's Safer to impossible. I have tried looking of gay people who aren't active in our Be Gay on Another Planet" (about gay everywhere that I know of but movement, information is more than images in science fiction/fantasy). Our have had no luck. You see I finding gay books and newspapers-it programs have always been open to need and want to talk to means finding other gay people. Our the gay community in the host city; no someone who has gone through group, the Gay Task Force of the need to be registered for the some of the things I'm going American Library Association, is conference or even be a librarian-just through now. I need to talk to sometimes the first connection they walk in. someone so desperately. Please make. Most years we have had a Gay reply. · Two librarians, a woman and a Book Award to confer. And always we • I have recently accepted my man, founded the Gay Task Force at had our Gay Bibliography to distribute. and I feel like the an American Library Association (ALA) We had begun this list as a selective world is on my shoulders. I conference in 1970. Their boldness and guide to the small crop of positive, know I can't run from it any energy fired up the handful of others gay-supportive books that were just more, but I'm still very fright­ who wanted to raise gay issues in the beginning to appear in 1970-71, plus a ened. If you would send me any library field and promote more and few key gay periodicals and pamphlets. information at all, no matter how better gay materials. Just a year later, Naturally we wanted the list to reach simple or initiation-like it may the group put on an ambitious show at not only librarians who buy for their seem, I would be eternally the ALA conference with a hospitality libraries, but also gay people who grateful. suite, handed out the first edition of A might be looking for material in • Hello. I'm a lesbian and I'm also Gay Bibliography, had three speakers, libraries and bookstores. So we started a college student. Last year I did waged a successful campaign to have getting mentions of A Gay Biblio­ a research paper on my people ALA pass a gay-rights resolution, and graphy and our group in books then (gays) and half the information initiated the first Gay Book Award (to A being published, such as Del Martin's was all lies. I was so furious. Place for Us by Isabel Miller, later and Phyllis Lyon's Lesbian/ Woman Since then I transferred to a republished as Patience and Sarah). (1972). (In 1983 we're still getting different college, and again I But what really put the group on · letters from this one source as people have a paper due. This time I the map was our Hug-a--Homosexual come across this book in libraries.) plan to have true facts. Please booth in the exhibit hall one afternon. For some who write to us, it's their send me your bibliography. On the bare grey curtains forming the first contact with a gay group, hence • I have just begun reading back wall of the booth, we hung signs the calls for help out of loneliness and Sappho Was a Right-on Woman. reading "Women Only" at one end and isolation. What a boon it was to us I am 26 and although I have "Men Only" at the other, and four of us when Gayel/ow Pages first appeared never had a homosexual exper­ stood under the appropriate signs, and we could steer people to that! ience, I know that I am a lesbian. offering free same-sex kisses and hugs As gay materials grew in quantity Before I began reading this book to librarians roaming the big exhibit and quality-and as our Gay Biblio­ I felt as though I were the only hall. Well, our aisle was jammed-but graphy got longer, to 563 items in the one in the world. Now I know nobody came into the booth. They all 6th edition in 1980- we began getting that I am not, but my only friend wanted just to watch the action. Maybe requests for shorter lists. lists crafted is that book. I have no idea the Life photographer and two local TV for a particular audience or focusing where to go or what to do. I'm cameras on hand made them feel shy. on one topic or kind of reading. An frightened and very alone. I Each year thereafter we created a aide to a midwestern state legislator would appreciate any informa­ lively presence at ALA conferences. asked for no more than a dozen basic tion you could send me so that I Our extra activities, such as two one­ gay items to start educating lawmakers may come in contact with others act plays, a display of fam~us art works who knew little about homosexuality. like myself. showing same-sex couples, and a gay " If you give them a long list, it's too • I am desperately looking for puppet show, never again eclipsed our much to grasp and they won't look at anything," she said. Lesbians and gay Because we have made our Gay Published in: men both wanted guidance to novels, Task Force so visible in and out of the since our bibliography had only non­ American Library Association, some fiction and biography/autobiography. people think we're a big official unit of LESBIAN/ GAY Founders of the early Parents of Gays ALA with an office and paid staff. PRIDE GUIDE 1983 groups wanted to pinpoint materials Actually we're a tiny handful of about gay people's relationships with volunteers around the country, getting their families. Once a librarian at a things done by mail and phone from Richard Drezen, Editor men's prison wrote that some prisoners our homes. We run on drive and wanted to be able to use gay materials dedication and a lot of help from our Tower Press without advertising the fact; would we friends. Non-librarians have been key 20 West 22nd Street make up a list of gay male books members of the group from the start, New York , NY 10010 without the words "gay" or "homo­ and at ALA conference time we draw sexual" in the titles or showing on the on dozens of people, especially in the covers? We did. One challenge we host city, for substantial help in simply can't meet, however, is the running our activities. occasional request along the lines of, We get no money from the "Please send all available information American Library Association. Our only on homosexuality. My term paper is money allocation, $300-$400 a year, is due next week ." a fair share of the small money pie of Out of the requests we got most our parent group within ALA, the often came a series of special lists. The Social Responsibilities Round Table. two most in demand, Gay Resources For the rest of our expenses we rustle for Religious Study and Gay Aids for up donations or dip into our own Counselors (each a handy sheet pockets. Our publications are priced to printed both sides and including a list just cover costs of producing and of organizations) are up to date; the mailing. other short lists, such as Gay Materials To get a list of all our publications, for Use in Schools, will be revised or more information about us, call or when possible. write: Barbara Gittings, Coordinator, One' special list we started in 1976, GTF-ALA, P.O. Box 2383, , of gay materials in format for the blind, PA 19103, (215) 471-3322. has since been adopted, with our gratitude, by another organization far better equipped to keep it up to date and circulate it: Lambda Resource Center for the Blind, 3225 N. Sheffield, Chicago, IL 60657. Now that we're finally getting good gay literature, how, people askeo, can GAY GRAB-BAG we get it into the libraries? So we Suppose we had to make up an emergency-rations package of just ten gay produced in 1979 a pamphlet of tips for titles, a core collection that would help isolated gay women and men, librarians non-librarians, explaining library selec­ just starting to acquire gay materials, and non-;;iays looking for a manageable tion policies in a general way and dose of basic information and enlightenment. What would .we put in the gay telling what individuals and groups can grab-bag? do to get a library to buy more gay Adair, Nancy and Casey Adair, editors. Word Is Out: Stories of Some of books and periodicals. Our Lives. New Glide/ Delta, 1978. Most of our work is guidance and Baetz, Ruth. Lesbian Crossroads: Personal Stories of Lesbian Struggles encouragement with respect to gay and Triumphs. Morrow, 1980. materials produced by others. The one Boggan, E. Carrington and others. The Rights of Gay People: An American kind of information on homosexuality Civil Liberties Union Handbook. Revised edition, Bantam, 1.983. that we're tackling directly is encyclo­ Brown, Howard. Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives: The Story of Homosexual pedia articles. Encyclopedias are often Men in America Today. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. a first source of information, and they Bulkin, Elly, editor. Lesbian Fiction: An Anthology. Persephone Press, carry authority, especially with school 1981 . students who assume the material in Fairchild, Betty and Nancy Hayward. Now That You Know: What Every them is the best available. What Parent Should Know About Homosexuality. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. students read about us in encyclo­ Green, Frances, editor. Gayel/ow Pages. Renaissance House, annual pedias ranges from dismal to depres­ editions. (Classified directories of gay/ lesbian organizations, businesses and sing, and has the kind of relevance of a services in the and Canada.) skin doctor writing about black people. Picano, Felice, editor. A True Likeness: Lesbian and Gay Writing Today. Our committee on encyclopedia The Sea Horse Press, 1980. changes is working with gay psychia­ Richmond, Len with Gary Noguera, editors, The New Gay Liberation Book: trists and psychologists who have the Writings and Photographs About Gay (Men's) Liberation. Ramparts Press, M.D.'s and Ph.D.'s that encyclopedia 1978. editors still insist on for articles on Weinberg, George. Society and the Healthy Homosexual. St. Martins, 1972. homosexuality.

Gay Task Force, American Library Association (Social Responsibilities Round Table) Box 2383, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Coordinator: Barbara Gittings (215) 471-3322.