From the Chair: Happy New Year!

By Ann K. Symons

On behalf of the GLBTRT Board and it’s officers, thank you for letting us represent you.

2014 is flying out the window.  It was a good year for the GLBT community and the Round Table.  Our GLBT News has gone from a quality newsletter to equally excellent digital coverage.  We have a new reviews committee, resource committee and fundraising committee.  This year, many of us have joined Mike and LarryMike Morgan and Larry Romans by participating in their challenge to raise funds for the Stonewall Book Awards.  We move forward in unique ways and thanks to Mike and Larry we have a lasting youth award: the  Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award.   Thank you Mike and Larry. Kudos!

GLBTRT is special for many reasons.   We definitely ended the year on a high note:  Rachel Maddow made us look good by blowing our horn for us and featuring RT members Kyle Lukoff and Talya Sokoll who are spending their holiday vacation volunteering in the Ferguson Public Library.  I wish I had thought of that.  Kyle and Talya will both be members of the 2015-2017 Stonewall Book Award Committee.  Thank you for your work.

The name road:  I could go on for paragraphs citing the work of our members and the ALA  staff and their accomplishments and I am sure to forget somebody so this will be short.  First the ALA staff:  We couldn’t do what we do without them and particularly John Amundsen, our RT staff liaison, Mary Ghikas, ALA’s Senior AED, and Paul Graller, ALA Conferences Services.  I want to thank the people that I am in contact with often and whose advice I often seek – my mentors:  “The Go to Guys”!

Clearly the highlight of the year is that same sex marriage is legal in 35 states.  Let’s count on adding to those numbers in 2015.

Progress is good and it is just that – there are many issues, which as citizens, and as librarians, demand our attention.  Twenty-nine states don’t have workplace protections for gender identity or sexual orientation — a legal gap that affects an estimated four million LGBT workers.  Same sex marriage is still banned in 15 statees.

College football star Michael Sam made sports history when he became the first out football player to be drafted by an NFL team, the St. Louis Rams.:  Other high profile names to add to this list in 2014 :  Tim Cook, Ellen Page, Laverne Cox, Geena Rocero. Let’s remember all of those who participated in National Coming Out Day.  This year the Human Rights Campaign has also chosen to honor not only all who have come out as LGBT but straight allies for equality as well.

2015 will be memorable.   On the ALA front, most notable will be:  Annual conference and San Francisco Pride.  Members will an opportunity to participate in the Pride Parade with San Francisco Public Library [more news to follow], our 45th anniversary as part of ALA, and a GLBT Pavilion on the Exhibit Floor in San Francisco.  The Stonewall Awards Celebration will be in a new format this year as a  program in the convention center free and open to all (but no food)!  There will be a GLBTRT pre-conference, a GLBT advocacy toolkit from the ad hoc advocacy committee, and much, much more that is escaping me at the moment.

I am grateful for to ALA for providing me friends:  new and old!  I wish you all the best of the season and a very happy New Year.  I look forward to seeing those of you who are at Midwinter.

 

My hopes, dreams, and wishes is that we will see more libraries, including school libraries, add to quality GLBT material to their collections, that publishers will be equally interested in publishing quality materials particularly for youth, and that libraries include GLBT programming/authors in their rich mix of community outreach.

Happy new year everyone!

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