Kelvin Smith Library

LGBTQIA+ Voices: Uplifting the Silenced
KSL Features, KSL 1st Floor
On display: June 2 - June 16

This display is done in collaboration with the CWRU LGBT Center and curated by one of the Center's Student Coordinators, Anya Tsang (CWR ’23). Browse and borrow specifically chosen memoirs by individuals of sexual and gender minorities and fiction ranging from romance to the supernatural, representing gay, lesbian, trans, and queer characters from the library's collection.

In 2022, the American Library Association (ALA) recorded the highest number of attempted book bans, with over half of the titles challenged for having LGBTQIA+ content. Gender Queer, written and illustrated by Maia Kobabe, is the most challenged book of the year 2022. Gender Queer will be one of four new books to be added to Kelvin Smith Library's catalog as a result of the research made for this book pop-up; part of an effort to increase the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ perspectives and experiences represented in the collection. 

Drawings of Robert Duncan
O'Neill Reading Room Walls, KSL 2nd Floor
Currently on display through August 2023

Robert Duncan (1919-1988) was one of the most influential post-WWII American poets and public intellectuals, one of the first literary figures to openly acknowledge his sexuality, and is believed to be one of the first prominent public figures to "come out." View selected images from Duncan's A Selection of 65 Drawings from One Drawing Book 1952-1956 that can be found in the library's Special Collections. 

Explore LGBTQIA+ culture, history, movements, issues, and primary source materials in a variety of formats through the following library databases. (Make sure to log in with your single sign-on to access these resources!)

LGBTQ+ Source
Provides indexing and abstract coverage of the world's literature regarding Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender issues. Literature includes LGBTQ-specific core periodicals, core books, reference works, monographs, and gray literature, including newsletters, case studies, speeches, etc., with full text of many important and historically significant LGBTQ journals, magazines, monographs, and regional newspapers.

LGBT Thought and Culture
LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting the key works and archival documentation of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. The collection contains 150,000 pages of rare archival content, including seminal texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and ephemera.

Queer Pasts
Collection of primary source exhibits for students and scholars of queer history and culture. The database uses “queer” in its broadest and most inclusive sense, to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and to include work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT.