While the American Library Association was the first to host a GLBTQ profesional organization other library groups would soon follow. The American Association of Law Librarians followed suit in 1985. The first meeting of what later came to be known as the Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues was called at the AALL Annual Meeting in New York City that year.
Over the next ten years, the Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues became one of the most active groups within the AALL. In 1992 constitution and by-laws were proposed and adopted. Like the Gay Task Force, the group began as a fairly informal group of lesbian and gay law librarians, but today it is a formal organization with 160+ members.
Gay Book Award Officially Adopted by the ALA
The Gay Book Award was first awarded in 1971, but at that time it was awarded by the Gay Task Force and was not a part of the ALAs series of awards. It was 15 years before the ALA adopted the award as one of their official awards.
In a 1999 Interview with American Libraries, activist Baraba Gittings was asked "Was there a moment in your work with libraries that you felt was the most gratifying of all?" Gittings responded "Possibly that was my very last official act as task force coordinator at the 1986 conference in New York, when I was able to announce that we had finally overcome all the hurdles and bureaucracy to establish the Gay/Lesbian/ Bisexual Book Award--which we'd been handing out since 1971--as an official award of the ALA. We had finally really arrived in the organizational tent."
In the years since, the award has undergone some changes and has grown into three separate awards: the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award, and the Stonewall Book Awards – Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award.
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| The 1985 Gay Book Award winner, the first awarded by the ALA itself |
In a 1999 Interview with American Libraries, activist Baraba Gittings was asked "Was there a moment in your work with libraries that you felt was the most gratifying of all?" Gittings responded "Possibly that was my very last official act as task force coordinator at the 1986 conference in New York, when I was able to announce that we had finally overcome all the hurdles and bureaucracy to establish the Gay/Lesbian/ Bisexual Book Award--which we'd been handing out since 1971--as an official award of the ALA. We had finally really arrived in the organizational tent."
In the years since, the award has undergone some changes and has grown into three separate awards: the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award, and the Stonewall Book Awards – Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award.
International Thesaurus of Gay and Lesbian Index Terms
One of the issues first addressed by the Gay Task Force in 1971 was the concern with how gay materials were labeled in libraries. The standard for subject headings and descriptors were set by the Library of Congress, and the LC headings were problematic and limited at best. As a result, many organizations and libraries started to create their own thesauri of appropriate gay and lesban subject headings and descriptors.
As a result of this, there were many conflicting terms and descriptors, making it difficult to cross reference and search for materials. In 1988 The Task Force on Gay Liberation convened a thesaurus committee to combine a number of existing subject term lists and produce something more uniform, the International Thesaurus of Gay and Lesbian Index Terms While many libraries chose to continue using their own system, the Library of Congress did add the International Thesaurus of Gay and Lesbian Index Terms to its own.
AALL Anual Meeting Relocation Campaign
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| AALL Members at the 1998 Anual Meeting in Anaheim, CA |
In response to this legislation, not wanting to bring any financial support to Colorado, the Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues led a campaign to relocate the meeting to Anaheim, California. They were successful in their campaign
Gay and Lesbian Task Force on American Libraries Magazine Cover
In 1992 ALA held their anual conference in San Francisco. The timing of the conference coincided with San Fancisco's Gay Pride parade, and so members of the ALA's Gay and Lesbian Task Force decided to march in the parade.
A photo from the parade was chosen for the American Libraries summer issue cover. Some theorize that the photo was chosen to show how inclusive ALA was or maybe to showcase the social activism surrounding that San Francisco was known for. The editors expected some readers would not agree with the choice, but the response was more negative than anticipated. There were also supporters, but the cover was definitely controversial. The following are examples of reader comments from the November 1992 issue of American Libraries."After receiving your July/August issue, I was shocked to see you glorifying and linking the homosexual movement to the American Library Association.... While fully understanding of the ALA's position on censorship (and agreeing with it), and understanding there are those in our society with different lifestyles (and tolerating it), I still find it reprehensible that an association I am a member of chooses to glorify homosexuals."
"As one of the gay librarians marching in the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade pictured on your July/August cover I was disappointed in some of my colleagues' responses to that photograph.... Gay and lesbians are not going to disappear from professional associations, or disappear from libraries. I applaud the editors of AL for acknowledging the task forces efforts."