Canadian teenagers like to read about Canadian characters. What if announcing at the reference desk Im Canadian was daunting to a teenager? What if when she said it, the reference desk person had trouble helping find resources? LGBTQIA+ YA readers are an important and unique subset of Canadian readers. When these readers cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when what they see are two-dimensional and stereotypical representations, they learn that they are devalued by society. Lets include, value and empower them instead. Lets look at strategies for putting good books into their hands. Well explore various studies and present findings from our own survey circulated to G.S.A. High School Clubs and LGBTQIA+ youth groups in 2015. Bring your strategies, your questions, your challenges and your favourite LGBTQIA+ titles. Were hoping youll leave energized with many titles to recommend and many ideas about how to recommend them.
Learning Outcomes
- Past studies have shown that Canadian public libraries have had trouble providing Readers’ Advisory for LGBTQIA+ Youth. We’ll present this research together with newer research available. How are we doing now?
- We’ll also present our own findings from a 2015 survey we will circulate with Gay Straight Alliance High School Clubs. We’ll also share the survey itself, so that attendees can approach similar groups in their communities.
- We’ll provide four LGBTQIA+ book lists: gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender as researched by Rob Bittner, PhD Candidate in the department of Gender, Sexuality, and Womens Studies at Simon Fraser University, member of Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable Steering Cttee.
