Gay/Lesbian Library in Fort Lauderdale Finds New Home, Despite Protests
Jennifer Pinkowski -- Library Journal, 7/18/2007
Despite protests by Fort Lauderdale mayor Jim Naugle that its collection includes “hard-core pornography,” the private Stonewall Library, one of the largest gay and lesbian libraries in the United States, will have a new home in the same city building that also houses the Fort Lauderdale Branch Library, a part of the Broward County Library. On July 11, the Fort Lauderdale City Commission, which includes Naugle, voted 3-2 to approve the 34-year-old library’s move. Stonewall needed new space after its current home, owned by the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida, was sold to developers.The Stonewall Library will not be a part of the public library, which occupies nearly a quarter of the 40,000-square foot building. Instead, it will become one of several tenants of ArtServe, a county-run arts agency. The library’s new 4500-square-foot space doubles its current size. “It’s a great location in the ArtServe,” chief librarian Andrew Katzen told Library Journal. “Hopefully we’ll get an increase in visitors.” After building out the space, the library plans to move in at the end of the year.
Critical coverage in some conservative news outlets alleged that pornographic materials are part of the library, but Katzen said they’re not found in the 18,000-volume lending library, which is visited by most of the library’s 9000 annual patrons, all of whom must be 18 or older. “Almost everything that is in our lending library is available at Barnes & Noble or Borders,” he said. It is the 40,000-item archive that holds the materials, such as Arab Slave Boys, that Naugle has targeted. “It’s not an open archive,” Katzen noted. Researchers must make appointments, and an archivist must be present during the research. The library also requires researchers to sign an archives patron agreement that says they are aware the collections are “not censored” and may contain content that is “sexually explicit, racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise personally offensive.”
Stonewall has a long-established relationship with the Broward County Library. Among other projects, the two collaborated on the 2005 exhibition “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945,” which was hosted by the main downtown library in Fort Lauderdale.
Katzen said the move comes at a time when the library is being energized by the larger space, increasing grants, and its first full-time hire, executive director Jack Rutland. (Like the rest of the staff, Katzen, a retired librarian from the Dartmouth Public Library, MA, is a volunteer.) “We’d like to be part of not only the gay community but the library community as well,” said Katzen. The library is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Library Association (ALA), and belongs to the ALA's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table.
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