October 11 marks the anniversary of the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987, and every year since then, it has been celebrated as National Coming Out Day, and October more generally as Coming Out Month. We thought we’d take the opportunity to highlight just a small number of the library’s many LGBTQ-related resources. A shout-out to Bentley PRIDE for reminding us of Coming Out Day, and contributing suggestions!
Our collections include a wealth of books, films, and e-resources. We’ve hand-picked some suggestions for you to start with: just check out our Pinterest board we’re calling “Out in the Stacks.” Never read Alison Bechdel’s award-winning graphic memoir Fun Home, or seen the classic documentary The Celluloid Closet? Check them out, or try some recent acquisitions like It Gets Better, a book of essays stemming from Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project.
Or take a look at the Gender & Sexuality section of our streaming film database, Films on Demand, to see videos ranging from interviews with transgender people to documentaries on LGBTQ people in Latin America and the Arab world.
For even more books, check out the complete list of winners of the Lambda Literary Award, given to books that make a significant contribution to LGBTQ literature and nonfiction.
For more information about the history of National Coming Out Day, take a look at the Human Rights Campaign’s website.
e as no surprise that some of our most circulated books and audiobooks have also been hits at the theater and on TV, including The Hunger Games trilogy, The Help, A Game of Thrones and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We’ve also come to expect appearances by authors Michael Lewis and Malcom Gladwell, whose popular works of nonfiction are perennial favorites here at the Bentley Library. You’ll note that this year our DVD Top 10 is actually a “Top 17”, but we had a number of films tied for the top spots and we didn’t want to leave any of your favorites off the list. Lastly, we’re really excited about the addition of two new lists – Downloaded eBooks and Downloaded Audiobooks. We’ve only had our downloadable book service for about a month, but we are already logging some impressive statistics.
