Towards a new specialization in health librarianship: LGBTQ health

Abstract

In 1964, Canadian gay activist Jim Egan and Maclean’s journalist Sidney Katz decided to kick-start a revolution [1]. Katz’s two-part article “The Homosexual Next Door: A Sober Appraisal of a New Social Phenomenon,” published by Maclean’s in February and March of that year [2, 3], was the first positive portrayal of homosexuality to appear in the Canadian mass media [4]. Katz had worked closely with Egan on the milestone article, later recognised as lending critical mass to the nascent Canadian gay liberation movement. In the same year, Canada’s first homophile organisation Association for Social Knowledge (ASK) was founded [5], and the gay community magazines Two and Gay were launched in Toronto [6]. There are various comprehensive accounts of the history of the struggle for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning) equality in Canada [7, 8], and the pages of JCHLA/JABSC are not the place to provide a further one. Indeed, readers of this article might be asking themselves what connection there is between Canadian gay activism and Canadian health librarianship. Our answer: because of a history of stigma and discrimination that may discourage them from accessing library services, LGBTQ health information seekers frequently have different information-seeking behaviours from their heterosexual peers. This includes LGBTQ health professionals [9, 10]. In our view, it is impossible to understand these differences in information-seeking behaviour, or to respond appropriately, without understanding the corresponding history of discrimination that many LGBTQ people have experienced. The current context for LGBTQ people, with dramatic improvements in civil rights and in public opinion, would be unimaginable to an LGBTQ person from 1964. However, many challenges remain such as ongoing workplace discrimination [11] and barriers to healthcare [12]. Here, we argue that the time has come for medical librarianship to engage more fully with the area of LGBTQ health and with potential LGBTQ users through visible demonstrations of support, the development of specialized training, and through the broadening of the evidence base for this area of our profession.