greetings

Hi everyone,

I'm Dan, the new library committee chair at the GLCC library in Pittsburgh. I've been a LT user for a long time. My personal library and picture can be found under e-zreader.

By day I'm the director of the PA Academic Library Consortium, Inc (PALCI) http://www.palci.org

Please introduce your self to the group and share any thoughts or concerns you have about managing a GLBT library. If your library has a FaceBook page please share that too. I haven't created a GLCC library FB page yet but I will soon. Watch for it.

Please invite other GLBT libraries to join this group.

Hope to hear from you.

Dan

Hi everyone

Karen from Quatrefoil Library in St. Paul, MN. I've been a LT users since September 2005, academic library worker by day, Quatrefoil Library board member, and MLIS grad student.

Quatrefoil is a GLBT lending library. We are member based, and totally volunteer run. We are celebrating our 23rd anniversary.

View our website www.qlibrary.org. We are on facebook, myspace & twitter.

I hope we can have a virtual cataloging party for all those obscure, unique items we may have that are not in worldcat.

I'm looking forward to the next GLBT-ALMS (Archives, Libraries, Museums & Special Collections) Conference in 2010---
I heart LT!
Karen

Hi Karen,

Can you post info about the GLBT-ALMS (Archives, Libraries, Museums & Special Collections) Conference in 2010? Start a new thread for it.

Thanks.

Dan

I’m Julio, the associate pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of Hartford. We are just getting our library set up. The church started the library over 20 years ago and donated it to the GLBT community center when the church ran out of space. We now have a much larger facility so when the center closed 2 years ago we rescued the collection (books only, we found no inventory or paperwork of any kind). We also inherited a smaller collection that had been housed at a local coffee shop/arts center that changed ownership because the new owners were not interested in the library. Currently, the project team consists of a young man who is a library science major and me. Some generous church members painted the library room and bought the shelving. We’re making slow but sure progress and have a pretty good collection.

Julio

Since the membership here consists of GLBT library representatives, I would like to ask for some guidance.

A few months ago, I emailed a message, with a cover image of my first book and website address with excerpts from the book, to several libraries around the world, including some listed on LT, offering imperfect copies of my book at no cost. The imperfections are a very slight marring on the back cover from the rollers at the printers, and do not detract from the quality appearance. However, I would not sell a book that was not perfect.

So, instead of tossing them, I thought I would offer them to GLBT libraries - free of charge, including no shipping expense to be borne by them. You might imagine my surprise when I only received one response from a GLBT library, in the USA. I even looked up contact names, so that my emails would go to the proper individual, when that information was available.

I have over thirty years experience in marketing and advertising, so I think the email message was appropriately laid out and simple. I am rather flummoxed by the poor response, when I read that libraries on LT want books to be donated. Have I missed something important about the process of offering a book, internationally?

I found my own answers, after several days of looking through other forums. Merci.

Hello everyone. Mike from the Chris Gonzalez Library here in Indianapolis. Our LT site was set up by an intern at the IU schoolof Library science last spring. Unfortunately she ran out of time and I've spent the last months organizing our lisitngs into the right collections. I also have about a thousnd titles she missed to add. Once I get all that done I'll have a better time getting to know more about LT and the libraries in this group.

Hi! (this is starting to sound a bit like an AA meeting, lol) I'm Katie, and I kind of adopted the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center library about a year ago. I work part-time at a public library, and was desperate for some professional development, so when I found that the LGBT Center had a library, I called up and volunteered my help. It was pretty much dormant, and the original volunteers who set it up had drifted away. And they said I could run it if I wanted...kind of a Secret Garden only with books!

So I sorted through about four years' worth of donations, helped them move the collection to a new location, and am looking for ideas on announcing our existence and marketing the library, as well as cataloging and collection development. I'm thrilled that LT has a group that works with the LGBT community, and understands the issues we share.

Hello to everyone, and special thanks to Karen at Quatrefoil, who helped me with cataloging ideas when I got started!

Hi my name is Andrew,

I found out that the William Way Center in Philly had a library about a year ago and was off and on volunteering but now i'm kinda in charge of it do to the fact that all the volunteers basically have no idea what to do in a library. at the moment i'm slowly changing the call number stickers from written to printed and I've gotten the supplies to cover the books. (I have a feeling this will take a while seeing as we have over 10,000 books). since joining LT I've decided to make a FB for the library and will post it when it's been made. If you want to know any thing more about our library or the archives let me know and i'll send you the information :)