CFP: Censorship Is a Drag: LGBTQ Materials and Programming Under Siege in Libraries

by Lacey Torge

Call for Chapter Proposals

Working Title: Censorship Is a Drag: LGBTQ Materials and Programming Under Siege in Libraries
Editors: Jason D. Phillips and Jordan Ruud
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2023
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book Description: Libraries, long tasked with defending intellectual freedom, find themselves under siege with threats of censorship for carrying gender/sexuality-related materials or holding LGBTQ-related events. Efforts to censor materials and control programming arguably threaten to have a chilling effect on libraries’ ability to carry out their core missions. We are soliciting contributions from across the library ecosystem exploring the significance of these threats and how librarians have responded, offering an intellectual and practical toolkit, in tandem with lessons with experience, to help libraries make their way through this new intellectual climate.

Topics under consideration might include:

  • Censorship of programming
  • Censorship of materials at any point in the acquisitions cycle
  • Preemptive caution (anticipation of censorship struggles) exerting a chilling effect on intellectual freedom
  • How classification can impede discoverability of controversial materials: “bibliographic invisibility”
  • Visibility of LGBTQ topics in displays
  • LGBTQ YA/children’s lit and its curricular role
  • Safe spaces for digital scholarship
  • The role and inclusion of LGBTQ materials, services, and outreach
  • Responsive collection development policy to address potential challenges
  • Administrative interference (campus, school, or public)
  • Workplace protections for LGBTQ personnel or those involved in LGBTQ
    collection development/programming
  • Information barriers creating a non-inclusive environment
  • Building design as a barrier to vulnerable populations (trans people)
  • Impact of LGBTQ materials and/or programming on student retention/mental health
  • The erosion of tenure as a threat to protection of intellectual freedom
  • Reflection on the role of LGBTQ materials as part of a collection, and as an aspect of overall library/campus DEI strategies
  • Politicization of library funding

We welcome contributions discussing specific situations, and also reflections of a more general nature on the importance of, and threats to, intellectual freedom.

We ask authors interested in contributing to submit a proposal or abstract in our submission form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bP5Eo_GsMXuCBMNerSdgtS9hjUVqrfEEuwvEwrCR-mY/

Deadlines:

  • April 1, 2023: abstracts due
  • April 30, 2023: notification of acceptance
  • September 1, 2023: drafts due
  • December 1, 2023: final revisions due
  • December 31, 2023: final submission of manuscript

Questions: If you have questions, please feel free to ask the editors: Jason D. Phillips (he/him) and Jordan Ruud (he/him)