Booksology The first pride is a riot, and June should be full of both joy and sadness, but it must be a month where you can experience strange identity and history Safely. It takes a few minutes to catch up on the pride of the library last year and a year ago, when I prepare for the display or program, it takes me a few minutes to catch up on the pride I had in the library: good, bad, ugly. Threats are a common thread, similar to the intentional deletion of strange books from shelves and displays (which are very likely to enter the third annual “celebration” of the year) thanks to initiatives such as “Hide the Pride.” This year, the library will undoubtedly deepen the quiet/quiet censorship of this year’s pride. Given the unrepentant attacks on libraries and DEIs by the current administration and its sympathizers and invaders, pride would appear to differ significantly this year, either last year or even the previous year.
LGBTQ+ books and content are numbers that are most likely to be deemed inappropriate for children by parents, and are sometimes difficult to understand. Use research information to help inform you of the material contained in Pride Display and programming.
Equally important is as follows: Staff include queer people, even if they are unable to openly go out at work. The more time and thoughts you have in preparation for June, the more you create more security for them, and it becomes clear that the library really aims to meet all your needs, and is actually a place of democracy and citizen engagement.
Check the shelf
Sign up, check out the shelves and check out our one-stop librarian shop news, book lists and more.
As a final tip of the year, consider perusing the archives of literary activities/book censorship news and see that anti-LGBTQ censorship stories have come up. What state or community has threatened to shut down an entire public library with a book featuring two moms or two dads? What queer books are specifically targeted? What is the reason? Use this information to create thoughtful social media posts all month long. It helps to clarify to those who are seen and feel the effects of this erasure and violence, and to those who are unaware, or who don’t think it’s really happening.
If you teach one patron about today’s reality for strange people, you’re making a huge difference.
*
With regard to Pride Display, it is impossible to fully protect what happens at any library. But book banners – knowing about the tactics used by custody activists, and how to advocate on behalf of LGBTQ+ books – helps people prepare for the best, most effective library pride display.
Among the suggestions below, you will manage ideas that are easy to realize and manage, along with some that you think need to do more destructive. Honestly, it may not be awful words. Perhaps a better way is that some of these suggestions may bring direct behaviorism to photography in ways that are not always common in public libraries.
But in today’s highly political world of libraries, sitting quietly is not an option. Even if it’s attractive or easier than preparing to fight. Become your own advocate here and now.
1. Take photos of the display and track the books written
There are many practical reasons to track what’s going on with Pride Display. It is useful to see and secure the right representation of your collection and community. It also helps to hide your pride-style campaign. If a book is “missing” then you’ll record what all of those books have in common. Tracking displays offers paper trails in an age of increasingly violent forms of censorship, including the recent burning of library titles.
2. Use the QR code/image of the book cover for the display
Pride Display is popular with both readers and biases, so consider displaying images of the book with QR codes or TinyURL links printed in catalog entries. This allows readers to request titles that may not be on display. If you’re in a library with little or no display space, use these as displays for bookshelf edges, window spaces, or other surfaces where patrons can see them.
3. Encourage engagement
The book display is fantastic. Because in general, people know that they find books in libraries. However, there are several ways to make your display even more attractive.
- Add reader advisory material. This is as simple as a bookmark or flyer with more LGBTQ+ books, or a sign holder with QR codes on a curated list of Queer Books in the catalog.
- Include flyers and information from local LGBTQ+ comprehensive support groups and community organizations. This could be a card from a local strange church or bakery, or a local GSA group. If the library is a community resource, it can help spread the word about additional welcoming and supportive resources in the community.
- Any of the above is an opportunity to create a “donation” appeal. “Want to support your local LGBTQ+ Youth? Scan your QR code and donate to your local branch of PFLAG.” Whether you are helping to raise money isn’t important enough to make it clear that you have a supportive space that people want to know.
- Provides library users with feedback about the display and encourages them to run it immediately on the display. It says that the QR code sounds like 2009. But a QR code on an online form, or a box with golf pencils and paper, and a box that asks you to share your thoughts on the types of books and programs the libraries offer to help you find local supporters and detractors.
- “Did you know we can request a book to buy?” I would like to want to extend your LGBTQ+ books to your users, and if they want to suggest anything, I would like to do so via print/online form. If it contains a name, if you purchase it, you will first be able to know about the arrival of the book.
- If your library is blessed with space, create opportunities for customers to create DIY LGBTQ+ displays. Invite people to grab and display your favorites with a blank space with the sign “Share your favorite LGBTQ+ books here.” Bonus: This is easy and fun passive programming. If you’re worried about your book being checked out, you’re probably worried.
- Print and share 56 small tasks to become aggressive against censorship in your 2025 post and make it more user-friendly in your library. There is a spreadsheet where each task is listed and linked to the work to make copy/paste easier. Whatever you create, as long as I and my work are here in this book Riot, I grant permission to use it. The credits will further spread the word about literary activities and book censorship news.
4. Track statistics
Remember the part about keeping tabs about which books are on display? You’ll want to look at the checkout rates of these books in the middle or late July and see how the distribution of these titles compares to the previous month. Perhaps it will be higher. That’s what is worth sharing with your community, your board of directors, and other community stakeholders. Once people know you have books, they want to read them.
5. Be honest about intellectual freedom and libraries
Even if you don’t have physical space, you’ll need to digitally connect with your patrons to keep banning books nationwide and firing LGBTQ+ books. Let your customers and visitors know that they have an incredible resource talking about first amendment rights and intellectual freedom. Include website/social media handouts and links in sources such as: Ready to be ready, Pen America’s report on the status of Book Bans in America, Everylibrary, Penguin Random House’s Book Ban Resource Hub, and our own literary activism newsletter.
If you have a local group doing anti-sensorship work, highlight them. If not, share your resources on how to start an anti-censorship group.
Include information about local elections and why they are important (and if you are in a school or library, you can neatly tie it to the way your institution is funded by taxpayers and has the right to elect not only those with whom you have a close relationship with them, but individuals who work on behalf of the entire community). It can also include information about local school boards, why they are essential, and how people can join the library board.
6. Be prepared for the challenge – and become transparent about your guardianship
Be prepared to potentially challenge the book. In the current book ban environment, your display could be the target of a small number of censors who think they’ll talk on behalf of the entire community. But by making sure your collection development policy is up to date, you can lead it and stand behind it. The more accessible information, the more transparent it is, and it cannot argue that it hinders the right to demand that censors have no access to the entire community.
If a book ban is currently being made locally, highlight it. Whether it’s your institution or not, it’s very important to give these displays a local angle. You either believe this is a red state, or the blue state is dangerous and dishonest. People deserve to know that it’s happening in their backyard, as it’s happening in their backyard.
7. Don’t display it at all, and explain why
It may not be legal to highlight strange books from your state or community. It may be perfectly legal and encouraged.
But imagine how a display of books draped on black sheets might look like a sign just as simple as “these books are illegal to share.”
This has many implications, including the fact that the already oppressed continues to be restrained and this silencing works quickly. But I also know that it might be very effective – what happens when all the strange books in the library are placed behind a desk, jumping into storage, or people can’t access them?
This is the reality in too many places.
If you’re going this route, focus on people, not books. This is surprising in the creation of handouts and accompanying materials to educate users about censorship and intellectual freedom. The people we need to reach may not be online, and they may not know what is going on nationwide, or what is going on in their own backyard.
But perhaps this could be a step towards educating and awakening them.
Once again: Take note here. You know if it’s suitable for the community. It makes a hell of statements and if it makes people angry, they will be ready to write those letters and show up at board meetings, demanding that those books be reverted and accessible, and their strange voices deserve as much space as all other voices – since June.
Another idea of this idea is to put the book in a brown paper bag or in a Ziploc bag. You will have the opportunity to talk about what Book Bans does.
Some additional resources for Library Pride Display are this guide when viewing Pride Display in the Library (it’s the perfect way to share on social media in the Library as this is the face of a patron) and the recent tales of the battle for Pride Display in public libraries.
