You may have noticed that I was suspiciously absent from this blog yesterday. I really wanted to post about the GLBTQ discussion from Wednesday's class, but I was afraid if I didn't give myself some time to gain some perspective the chances of me sitting down and writing a blistering post would be quite high. So I've been mulling it over the past day or so, and I think I'm ready to tackle it now.

By and large the discussion was respectful. Since the Romance debacle I have taken several opportunities to speak with my class about showing respect to all genres/subgenres, regardless of what their personal feelings are about them. I'm not stupid enough to think that when they are at work or talking with friends that they are not possibly trashing whatever it is that we are reading for the week, but I don't want to hear it in my classroom. If you are comfortable enough to look like an ass and disrespect a genre to your instructor who is grading you, then you are going to feel free to do that to a reader who has come to you for a book recommendation.

Not to say that there wasn't the possibility for complete ugliness. One of my students who has enjoyed everything I had given her to read so far absolutely hated her book. We were talking about it before class, and she used words like smut and filth. Not one to let something like that go by I asked the student to show me an example of what she was talking about in the book. She found a section she was disturbed by and I read it. Afterward I told my student that while the scene was graphic in its description, it really wasn't all that different than what I've read in a lot of the mainstream, contemporary romances today. The only difference being that it was man on man action instead of a man and a woman. I was nice about it, but I did tell her that it was her problem and not the literature's. Although she was the only one to vocalize it to me, I'm sure more than one student in class would have been more than ready to jump on the this is gross and disgusting to me so it must be filth bandwagon. Thankfully the discussion did not deteriorate into that.

There were many little things that happened throughout the discussion that I found disturbing, but I'm only going to address two of them here. First and foremost, the majority of the class seemed to be in deep denial about our responsibilities as librarians in providing GLBTQ Fiction to our patrons. And when I say GLBTQ Fiction I'm not just talking about the more literary/message novels like Middlesex, Tipping the Velvet, or Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which I heavily featured in our class readings (more on that in a bit). I'm also including more popular fiction like Hot Sauce, Someone Killed His Boyfriend, or A Habit for Death. The thoughts of my students were pretty much, "If GLBTQ readers want us to collect these books they need to let us know." To coincide with that was the even more disturbing (at least to me), "A library will have a selection of GLBTQ titles if there is a need for it in their individual community."

What you talking 'bout Willis?

My students were honest to God asking me to believe that the reason I had such a hard time tracking down certain titles for our discussion was because the libraries I have access to didn't see a need for GLBTQ Fiction in their communities (and please keep in mind that we are talking about the suburban Chicago area). Yeah, I'm not buying that. So I asked them to explain to me why nearly every public library YA collection will have a wide selection of GLBTQ titles from luminaries such as David Levithan, Julie Ann Peters, and Alex Sanchez, yet the adult collection will have bubkis. Are we saying that our patrons need these books as young adults but not as adults? Are they suddenly growing up straight? Needless to say no one had an answer for me.

The truth is that sometimes we librarians suck. Our patrons have needs that we choose to for whatever reason ignore or refuse to meet. And I'm not librarian bashing here, because I'm guilty of it too. When I'm ordering fiction I'm not necessarily thinking of my GLBTQ patrons reading wants, which is wrong of me. As one student so succinctly put it, even though she enjoyed her book it would be the only one she would read starring a gay character. She herself is straight so she only reads straight books. Jumping on that one dimensional (and somewhat scary) way of thinking, it's not outside the realm of possibility the someone who was gay would like to read books featuring gay lead characters. So why aren't libraries making a more concerted effort to collect GLBTQ Fiction the way we do books in Spanish or Polish (in my library's case)? To echo the thoughts of one student who fell on the other side of the discussion, having a copy of Angels in America in our collection isn't enough.

And this leads into my second topic of discussion, which isn't so much a class discussion problem as a Kelly fubarred the class up problem. I pulled out the GLBTQ books and treated them as a separate genre. At the time I thought that was a good decision, but now I thinking all I'm doing is perpetuating the problem. In my mind by looking at GLBTQ as a separate genre I was giving these authors, stories, character, etc. the full and proper attention they deserved. Instead, the message I gave my students was that these books should be treated as special and separated from everything else. When I'm wrong, I'm wrong and I need to take the hit on this one.

The bad news is that I have so fubarred this class that my students are probably past the DNR point and I will be sued for educational malpractice. The good news is that I can learn from this, and if I am ever coaxed out of the cave I am secluding myself in once this semester is over and asked to teach another Reader Advisory class I will make several significant changes to the curriculum. That's something at least.

For another perspective on Wednesday's class (which somewhat echo my own), check out Manogirl's thoughts.

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