Prompt 14

Some of the things that I would consider if I was faced with this decision are: Do we already have some books separated by genre? Are there spine labels that depict types of genre or subject matter? 

Do our patrons want the books to be separate, or would they rather they all be in one big collection? Also, are we separating children, teens, adult, or all three?

If our collection is not currently separated into genres and we decide to only separate LGBTQ and African American Fiction, then I would say no, we should not separate them and keep them integrated with the rest of the fiction collection. However, if we have some of our collection separated (for instances at the library where I work our Mystery, Paperbacks, and Inspirational books are separated) then it may be more acceptable to separate both LGBTQ and African American Fiction. But does that make it right?

With that being said, if I were faced with this decision, I would not separate the LGBTQ and African American Fiction. Why should the sexual orientation or the color of the characters skin be enough to make the book be classified as a different genre? A romance novel can be made up of LGBTQ characters or African American, or a mystery, or a science fiction, or historical fiction and not be any different from the other books within those genres outside of the ethnicity or sexual preference of the characters. A blogger, Robin Bradford, posted their opinion on the separation of African American books in their blog post, “The black shelves are over there…….” Bradford stated, “there are so many African American authors in the world now, and the only thing they have in common is the color of their skin. The color of their skin tells you absolutely nothing about what lies between the covers of their books. Yet, we'll let a fan of mystery novels see every book we have except for the ones written by people with brown skin. If you want books by those people, you have to go over to the other section, and sort through the space ships, wizards, unicorns, vampires, and romance novels by brown skinned people until you find a mystery you might want to read.” I believe this perfectly sums up the idea that these books should not be separated based solely on the ethnicity or race of the main character. While there may be some literature and novels that should be labeled as African American or LGBTQ based on their subject matter, most of the novels with these subjects are just like any other novel with an English main character or a heterosexual character.

As librarians, we work to create equal access to all types of novels in all subjects and genres. If we separate these books into their own section that may deter other patrons from finding a book within that section that they love. Separating these genres can also be reiterating that these authors, novels, and stories are “different” and should be separate from the “normal” fiction section. By labeling or even separating these novels we are erasing all the other characteristics and appeals within these books and making them all about one specific genre.

I’ll end my prompt with a final quote from Bradford’s blog, “I've never had anyone come in for Victoria Christopher Murray and leave with Zane because they're both black. I've never had anyone come in for Jan Karon and leave with Laurell K. Hamilton because they're both white. One is just as good as the other, right?” Patrons do not usually pick authors because of their race, but pick them because of their genre or writing style. We should keep these books together because it is important for patrons to see that everyone should be seen as equal no matter if they look different or love differently than you do.

I do love the idea of having equal representation of LGBTQ and African American (and other races for that matter) characters in books and believe that everyone should be able to read a book and be able to relate to their character or find a character that looks or acts like them or represents their family.

Works Cited:
Bradford, Robin (2011). "The black shelves are over there...." Blogger, https://cdstacked.blogspot.com/2011/07/black-shelves-are-over-there.html.