Carlos Alberto Della Paschoa kharlotz@yahoo.com.br
Elisete de Sousa Melo elisetemel@hotmail.com
Known internationally for its exuberant nature and cultural diversity, Río de Janeiro is considered one of the main “gay friendly” from Latin America, along with São Paulo and Buenos Aires. It is a city marked by color, brightness and the rhythm of Carnival, where respect for diversity is present, including the LGBT+ culture that forms part of the local scene.
In this context, can you imagine that in the Wonderful City there is a library that houses a collection focused on LGBT+ culture in Hispanic countries? And that the movie “My mother likes women”, by Inés Paris and Daniela Fejerman (2002), was the motivation to develop this collection?
In this article we are going to present the LGBT+ collection of the Nélida Piñón Library of the Cervantes Institute of Rio de Janeiro and some indications and recommendations on how to start a collection on this topic.
The Nélida Piñon Library of the Cervantes Institute of Rio de Janeiro
The Nélida Piñón library is part of the Cervantes Institute Library Network (RBIC), institution created in 1991 by the Government of Spain with the mission of promoting education of Spanish and the dissemination of Spanish and Latin American culture. The RBIC is one of the pillars of the Cervantes Institute to achieve its objectives. Currently it has 60 libraries spread across five continents, operating in multicultural environments and multilingual.
The LGBT Collection
To understand the development of the LGBT+ Collection, we must analyze some of the facts that motivated it.
In 2005, Spain approved same-sex marriage, becoming one of the precursor countries, along with Holland, Belgium and Canada. Furthermore, he began to develop progressive legislation regarding the rights of the LGBT+ community, such as homoparental adoption or change of official gender status.
Consequently, this change is subsequently reflected in library management with the inclusion of LGBT+ bibliographic collections, supported by legislation on equality of rights rights in some autonomous communities of Spain, such as Galicia (Law 2/2014), Catalonia (Law 11/2014), Extremadura (Law 12/2015), Madrid (Law 03/2016), Murcia (Law 8/2016) and Balearic Islands (Law 8/2016) (Gómez-Hernández, Pérez-Iglesias, 2017).
Another aspect to highlight is the inclusion of the new Spanish family model presented in the teaching methods of Spanish Foreign Language (ELE), designed by the teams pedagogical programs of Spanish publishers. Some of these manuals have been used in the Spanish courses taught by the Cervantes Institute.
The motivating factor for the creation of the collection was the continued demand for the film “My Mother likes women”, a Spanish comedy directed by Inés Paris and Daniela Fejerman (2002). At the time, this film was highly requested by Spanish teachers to project it in class as a didactic and cultural tool, which caused an enormous request for LGBT+ themed films and literature from students and other users.
Despite having documents on this topic in the general collection, how can we justify the creation of a collection specialized in LGBT+ culture?
To do this, it was necessary to consult the RBIC Collection Development Policy, in which it is established that “The bibliographic collections of the Instituto Cervantes library network start from a common fund of obligatory presence derived from their primary function: to offer a representative, current and balanced vision of the Spanish cultural reality and Spanish-speaking, in accordance with the objectives of the institution” (RBIC, 2009). It is observed that the approval of same-sex marriage, as well as other related issues with sexual minorities, is a reflection of a new and current social context in Spain, therefore that, from the point of view of offering a representative vision of cultural reality Spanish, the creation of a collection specialized in LGBT+ culture is justified, thus responding to the information demands of users and the Development Policy of RBIC Collections.
In cultural terms, one of the characteristics of both Spanish cinema and literature is to present references to LGBT+ culture in Spain. For this reason, the LGBT+ Collection begins first for Spanish cinema, with a selection of videos already existing in the collection, to then move on to literary works.
For reasons of space, it was decided at the time that all the documents in this collection would not be gathered in a single space, but would be identified in the catalog of the library with the acronym “LGBT” in the specimen file. Although the acronym has grown in today – LGBTQIA+ –, the collection retains its original name, which is presented in this article as LGBT+.
During this process, we realized that a documentary representation was missing significant that reflected the reality of LGBT+ culture in Latin American countries and which, according to the RBIC Collection Development Policy, should also offer a representative vision of the “Spanish-speaking cultural reality”. Unlike the context Spanish, the social reality of the Latin American LGBT+ community differs in each country from the region.
At that time, we perceived the importance of searching for documents that dealt with the Hispanic American LGBT+ culture as a way of offering a contrasting vision between Spanish reality and that of the Latin American countries.
Concern for the defense of the rights of the LGBT+ community has become focus of attention of Latin American public organizations, such as the Organization of States Americans (OAS), whose LGBTI Support Group defends regional efforts to guarantee that all human beings live free of violence and discrimination based on their sexual orientation, gender orientation or expression. It was found that the 2030 Agenda of the The United Nations still does not include the LGBT+ community in its Development Goals Sustainable (SDG).
According to the president of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, the objective of the institution It is not only to spread Spanish vocabulary and culture, but also to show the best side of Spain around the world. And that the Cervantes Institute wants its headquarters to be “areas of freedom" in countries where LGBT+ rights do not exist. In this sense, the creation of a LGTB+ collection, in addition to giving visibility to this community and culture, is essential for satisfy the information needs of the different groups that comprise it, from theoretical and training texts to personal and recreational reading.
Developing a collection on this topic in the Hispanic context requires time and dedication on the part of the library professional. When documenting LGBT+ culture, It must be taken into consideration that there are few sources of information dedicated to the LGBT+ community and access to information and publications is scarce despite the visibility of the LGBT+ movement. The management and development of this collection has its own particularities (selection, maintenance, extension activities), as we will see below.
Selection
Regarding publications in Spanish, the selection is made through:
- Consultations with experts in LGBT+ culture;
- User suggestions;
- Catalogs of LGBT+ literature publishers (Amistades Particulares, Amor de Madre, Dorna, Dos Bigotes, Egales, Kakao Books, La Calle, LES, Sietch);
- Catalogs of Spanish bookstores specialized in LGBT+ literature (A Different Life, Antinous, Berkana, Cómplices, Mira);
- Websites and blogs specialized in LGBT+ culture.
It must be remembered that there are few publishers and bookstores specialized in LGBT+ culture and that the available catalogs contain many translations of foreign works, so It is necessary to check which ones are exclusively by Hispanic authors.
As for Latin American publications, the editorial reality is different and access to information and publications is more limited. Most LGBT+ publishers found in Argentina (Documenta/ Escénicas, Gog y Magog, Hekht, La Mariposa y la iguana, Maravilla, Monada, Nebliplateada y Paisanita) and México (Taika). The same happens with the specialized bookstores of the same countries: Argentina (Otras Letras) y México (Somos Voces, U-Tópicas, La Murciélaga, La Cháchara Periférica, El Armario Abierto).
For information on LGBT+ literature from other Spanish-speaking countries, it is necessary to do an exhaustive search on the Internet; As for the purchase, it is not always possible due to import and shipping of books.
Maintenance
The collection is built over time, with new titles acquired annually and through sporadic donations. Throughout its 19 years of existence, the collection has brought together works that represent and respond to the needs of different groups in the LGBT+ community, such as:
- Children’s and youth literature
- Gender studies and queer theory
- Lesbianism
- Gays
- Transvestism
- Transsexuality
- Bisexuality
- History of homosexuality in Spain and Latin America
Extension activities
Another aspect to value are the library’s outreach activities aimed at the community. LGBT+. These are essential to give visibility and usefulness to the collection, in addition to bring the community closer to the library.
The Nélida Piñón Library has developed some activities such as:
- Film projection
The screening of the Brazilian short film “La inevitable historia de Letícia Diniz”, directed by Marcelo Pedreira (2012) on the situation of transvestites in Brazil, and debates with the actress and transvestite Jane Di Castro and transsexual activist Indianara Siqueira in 2014.
- Cultural day
To celebrate Pride Day, the library organized a literary coffee with the Brazilian writer Ivann Willig who spoke about his work “Grades do Preconceito”, a talk with the transvestite Divina Valéria, a bibliographic exhibition of the LGBT+ fund and the screening of the Argentine film “Cross Dreamers” by Soledad Velasco (2022).
The librarian
In this entire process, the information professional (Librarian) plays a role key in the development of a specialized collection, since he knows the mission, vision, values and objectives of the library as an institution, the existing collection, its community, users and your needs, which makes you the most appropriate person to adjust the criteria of development of the collection, so that he can evaluate and select the titles that they will enrich.
Recommendations for developing an LGBT+ fund
Developing a collection specialized in LGBT+ requires time, dedication, attitude and learning by the information professional. As we have seen throughout this story, the collection was formed over time and as publishers and specialized bookstores that made the acquisition of these publications possible. Still We have a list of expert-recommended Spanish-American titles that we would like have and until now we have not been able to get them, but this is an incentive to continue looking for them.
Without a doubt, the collection of the Nélida Piñon Library is a reference for researchers and scholars of LGBT+ culture in the Hispanic Universe and we hope that this work will be source of inspiration to other librarians.
Libraries constitute a democratic space by nature in which all the diversity of knowledge. Include a section, collection or books with content LGBT+ is to give voice and space to this community, it is to comply with the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and, endowed as they are with reason and conscience, they must “behave fraternally with one another.”
IFLA LGBTQ Users 