Cross-posted from H-LIS for interest of lis-libhistorians. James
Carmichael spoke at IFLA in Amsterdam last year - see my account of the
meeting in the latest "Library History Newsletter".

Peter Hoare
______________________________________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 16:52:50 -0600
From: Christine Pawley <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Besant on Carmichael, _Daring to Find Our Names_

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (February, 1999)

James V. Carmichael, Jr., ed.  _Daring to Find Our Names:  The
Search for Lesbigay Library History_.  Beta Phi Mu Monograph
Series No. 5.  Westport, Conn.:  Greenwood Press, 1998.  xiv +
251 pp.  Photographs and index.  $59.95 (cloth), ISBN
0-313-29963-3.

Reviewed for H-LIS by Michele Besant <[log in to unmask]>,
School of Library and Information Studies, University of
Wisconsin-Madison

             GLB Library History in the Making

In this aptly titled volume, Carmichael has put together diverse
materials to begin a search and opens a door to much more work.
The book should be of interest to a wide audience.  While
library history, and particularly gay, lesbian, and bisexual
(GLB) library history may seem a small closet in the world, it
is an area of rich potential for scholars of women's history,
gay and lesbian studies, and print culture.  The contributors
provide plenty for academics to chew on, but they also offer
good reading for anyone interested in GLB community or
libraries.  If your library does not own it, request it.

Carmichael's book is important for further breaking the loud
silence in library and information studies (LIS) literature
surrounding gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) people.  As
Carmichael states in his introduction, Cal Gough and Ellen
Greenblatt must be acknowledged for their 1990 book, _Gay and
Lesbian Library Service_.  However, their work focused on
providing services to gays and lesbians, while _Daring to Find
Our Names_ focuses on GLB librarians and research.  In 1997,
Norman Kester edited a collection of personal essays,
_Liberating Minds:  The Stories and Professional Lives of Gay,
Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians and Their Advocates_.
Otherwise there have been only infrequent journal articles in
the LIS literature, mostly focusing on library services and
particularly evaluation of GLB materials for youth.  Overall,
however, there has been virtually no GLB history research in the
field--despite the American Library Association (ALA) being the
first professional organization in the United States officially
to sanction a gay and lesbian group within its ranks, despite
the widespread stereotype of librarianship as a haven for gay
men, and despite in library history an intriguing number of
"single women" librarians sharing personal as well as
professional lives.

Carmichael's excellent introduction starts the book by
contextualizing it in terms of the library world.  In suggesting
why this area of library history has been neglected, he points
out the tension in the librarianship between librarians as
cultural conservators or social change agents.  Further, within
librarianship there has been angst over professional image and
status, usually related to being a feminized profession.  Also,
the field is in a time of many calls to "reinvent" itself to
meet the challenges of this Age of Information.  Add these
issues to the uneasy mix of sexuality and the workplace; pour
over a field that spreads across many institutions--public
libraries, academics libraries, special libraries, school media
centers; top with most library history being done in
professional schools where there is little support and few
people for such work.  Voila, invisibility.

But at last the search has begun.  Carmichael has assembled
contributors to consider methodological issues, document the
history of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force (GLBTF) of ALA,
provide an inside look at gay and lesbian archives, and share
personal experience.  He has created coherence among essays
widely varying in topic and voice with his organization of the
chapters.

In Part One, "Finding Our Names," the first chapter presents a
broad overview of research issues ranging from the question of
the meaning of gay/lesbian identity through history, to
accessing a hidden population, to lack of financial and academic
support.  Caitlin Ryan and Judy Bradford rightly point out that
the answer is not to despair, but to train.  The second chapter,
by Christine Williams, examines the gendering of librarianship
and the paradox of heterosexism in a "gay"  profession.  The
author extracts information about librarianship from her
research exploring the position of men in female dominated
professions.  Williams illustrates the power of "hegemonic
masculinity" and how it impacts the structure of organizations.

The other chapters in Part One illustrate issues by describing
the process of three projects:  Margaret Rose Gladney's
biographical work on Lillian Smith (author of _Strange Fruit_);
Louise Robbins' historical research on the McCarthy Era purge of
employees from the Library of Congress; and Norman Kester's
editorship of _Liberating Minds_.  By great chance Gladney
discovered letters of Smith to her female lover and received
fierce resistance from Smith's family about sharing this aspect
of Smith's life.  Robbins uncovered much evidence pointing
toward homosexuality as the reason for dismissal of some Library
of Congress employees, but ultimately had to accept that without
additional sources of information, the full story is still in
the closet.  Both of these chapters display scrupulous
documentation and make very intriguing
reading-researcher-as-detective stories as well as historical
essays.  Kester's chapter details the genesis of the project and
talks about his methods for reaching potential contributors and
finding a publisher.  While he received plenty of encouragement
to put together the project, it turned into quite a saga to find
contributors, especially librarians of color.

Part Two, "Telling our Names," documents GLBTF with essays by
the first principle organizers, Israel Fishman, Barbara
Gittings, and Janet Cooper, photographs from the early years by
Kay Tobin Lahusen, and a twenty-five year chronology by Cal
Gough.  It's wonderful to have this history collected and in
book form.  Gittings was a driving force in GLTF for many years,
and while her history of the first sixteen years is a reprint,
it has been only sporadically available in pamphlet form until
now.  Gough put together his chronology for the program of the
anniversary celebration in 1995, but it too has not been widely
available.  Fishman's essay as the actual founder and Cooper's
provocative essay pointing to the inconsistency in ALA (its high
minded official stance on intellectual freedom on one hand and
its ambivalence about concrete action on social issues on the
other) combine with Gittings' essay to give a more thorough
picture of the development of GLBTF.  Together the chapters in
this section make a good sourcebook for someone to undertake a
longer history of an organization that is an interesting piece
not only of library history but of gay and lesbian activism and
the creation of political identity.

GBLTF was founded in 1970 as the Task Force for Gay Liberation,
several years before homosexuality ceased to be designated a
mental illness by the American Psychological Association.  The
Task Force combined tactics such as the Hug-a-Homosexual booth
at the 1971 ALA conference exhibit hall with the wide
distribution of bibliographies of gay and lesbian books and the
establishment of their book award to increase the visibility of
gays and lesbians in society as well as within the profession.
Throughout its history GBLTF has arguably been a force to
"normalize" the inclusion of GLB materials in libraries and by
its very presence has demonstrated that "we are everywhere."  As
most GLB organizations, GLBTF has had tempestuous moments,
internally as well as externally.  Ironically, the librarians
involved have not been the best record keepers; deposits at the
ALA archive in the library at the University of
Illinois-Champaign/Urbana have been inconsistent at best.  Part
Two of DTFON provides an invaluable start to getting the whole
story told.

Part Three, "Saving Our Names," provides a good look at four
very different gay and lesbian archives.  Each is a bit of
history unto itself, telling the stories of the Human Sexuality
Collection at Cornell (Brenda Marston), the Lesbian Herstory
Archives (Polly Thistlewaite), the Western Gay Archives (Jim
Kepner) which merged in 1994 with the ONE, Inc. Library to
become the ONE/International Gay and Lesbian Archives, and the
Lesbian and Gay Archive of New Zealand (Phil Parkinson and Chris
Parkin).  Each examines issues of archival collecting, storage,
security, and maybe most importantly, politics.  What gets
collected?  Who decides?  Who has access?  What are the pros and
cons of a community based archive versus an institutional one?
All are hard questions, and the authors share viewpoints that
are both passionate and thought-provoking.

While there is always more to be collected and backlogs to be
inventoried, amazing work has been done by professional
archivists and legions of volunteers to make sure future
generations have access to GLB history.  No graduate student of
history should ever be told again that "there are no sources"
for doing lesbian history, as Marston was fifteen years ago.
GLB community members can know they are far from alone.  The
Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable (LAGAR) of the Society of
American Archivists (SAA) has been working on a directory of
archives collecting gay and lesbian materials.  LAGAR can be
contacted through SAA's web site:  www.archivists.org/.
Literally tons of materials are waiting to be used.

Part Four, "Owning Our Names," consists of three personal essays
by recent gay graduates of the Department of Library and
Information Studies at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro.  Donald Forbes, Richard Huffine and John Barnett
were asked by Carmichael to share their reflections on what
librarianship means to a gay professional.  In sharing their
experiences, the three provide moving testimony of both the
difficulties and heartfelt motivation they have to be librarians
who truly are defenders of intellectual freedom.  While it would
have been nice to have some gender parity in the voices, these
men provide poignant tales that remind us lives are at stake.

_Daring to Find Our Names_ brings together an incredibly varied,
and in sum, rich collection of essays.  On first picking up the
volume, I found the movement between the "teacherly," the
personal, and the traditional academic among and even within
chapters jarring.  However, as I read on I felt a sense of
living history.  I laud Carmichael's vision and initiative in
undertaking this work.  It has been sorely needed.  I hope
Carmichael himself plans to undertake more of the research this
book so clearly invites.  Together with his contributors, he has
offered us a fine beginning.

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