SAN ANTONIO – Kieren Hickey and his team of librarian volunteers work to elevate queer voices in places where LGBTQ+ people may not have access to those types of books at their home libraries.
Queer Liberation Library operates as a nonprofit with librarians who have specialized knowledge in curating for specific audiences, spanning from adult fiction to young adult to children’s books. Their goal is to find and share queer stories in various formats.
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“What we wanted to do was to make queer literature and information and resources just more accessible in the United States. Because, one, we’re living in a scary time where there’s been a lot of pushback to queer books and queer stories that are very dependent upon where someone lives — state to state, county to county,” Hickey said. “So, we were able to sort of build something that is a little bit less dependent on the geographical location of the reader.”
The Queer Liberation Library has a collection development policy that prioritizes living queer authors, but classic LGBTQ+ literature is not excluded.
“By prioritizing living, out authors, we’re able to sort of like put money back into the hands of those queer people who are writing and telling stories today,” Hickey said. “So it’s sort of a balance deciding between how much we do of each particular sort of subset. The choosing comes down to librarians with more specialized knowledge.”
People who are interested in becoming members of the Queer Liberation Library can sign up for a free membership online and get access in about a week to the collections, which are on the Overdrive and Libby platforms.
The organization is entirely donor-funded and volunteer-powered, so monetary donations and spreading awareness are ways people can support its mission, according to Hickey.
Queer Liberation Library just hosted its big fundraiser in June during Pride Month but plans to host other events in the future.
Find more information about the library and ways to help here.
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