The LGBT+ community is a rapidly developing community full of changes in language and orientations that even those within the community may not be familiar with. How can a library support such a fast-paced community without providing dated or even sometimes offensive information? In the past, Spiva Library has created a new collection and a libguide for the community in support of the collection. This year I joined the campus program of MSSU Safe Spaces. In doing so, I reviewed their website and found updated information and tools for our LGBT+ patrons. I realized where a library could fall short due to the limitations of our own understanding. As I worked on the Safe Zone website, I realized there are many orientations and LGBT+ issues that are not as obvious such as gender identity, pansexuality, and sexuality vs. orientation. In this presentation, I will encompass how the library can be a good ally to the LGBT+ community and how to find information and materials about all orientations.
During this presentation, we will share how we accomplished the goal of bridging the gap between our face-to-face library offerings and our online offerings by discussing the results from two survey instruments, the issues from design flaws, and how we overcame those flaws to move forward with established strategies. The session will also include analysis of our strategic initiatives – why we chose these specific initiatives, how well they did or did not work, and which will become permanent services. Some of the initiatives included creating a series of streaming instructional videos, developing a library organization within our content management system, the utilization of Blackboard, and the use of the Blackboard Collaborate feature to implement Book a Librarian, a virtual consultation service.
