We’re less than one month out from Pride month, and with it, the programs, book displays, and conversations about LGBTQ+ identity and history across the USA and beyond. For libraries, Pride has traditionally been a month for joyful displays of queer books, with periodic and predictable complaints. But several years into surging book bans, escalating violence, and rising fascism, it is important to prepare for the upcoming month of events to anticipate all that has, does, and might arise.
For the last couple of years, I’ve put together a how-to guide to Pride displays in libraries, and it feels appropriate to repost it now to help libraries prepare. If you’re not a library worker, let this be an opportunity to plan not only what to do when you see a Pride display in your local library but also to take action and write to your local library board about how important it is that the library offers LGBTQ+ books and LGBTQ+-centered programming.
The first Pride was a riot, and while June is and should be full of both joy and sorrow, it should be a month where queer identity and history can be experienced safely. As you prepare for displays and programs, take a few minutes to catch up with the things that came up last year and the year prior during Pride at libraries — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Intimidation is a common thread, as is the intentional removal of queer books from shelves and displays thanks to initiatives like “Hide the Pride” (which will very likely enter its third annual “celebration” this year). We will see a deepening of quiet/silent censorship of Pride this year in libraries, without question. Given the unrepentant attacks on libraries and DEI by the current administration and its sympathizers and aggressors, Pride is going to look remarkably different this year than even last year or the previous year … let alone the year we rounded up such powerful displays of Pride in libraries.
LGBTQ+ books and content are the most likely to be deemed inappropriate for children by parents, sometimes in numbers that are difficult to comprehend. Use the information in the research to help inform materials included in Pride displays and programming.
Equally important to the above and below is this: your staff includes queer people, even if they might not be openly out in the workplace. The more time and thought put into preparing for June, the more safety you create for them, too, and the more it becomes clear that the library truly aims to meet the needs of all and is indeed a place of democracy and civic engagement.
Check Your Shelf
Sign up to receive Check Your Shelf, the Librarian’s One-Stop Shop For News, Book Lists, And More.
As a final tip this year, consider perusing the archives of Literary Activism/Book Censorship News and see what stories of anti-LGBTQ censorship have come up. What states or communities have threatened to shut down their entire public library over a couple of books featuring two mommies or two daddies? What queer books are being specifically targeted and why? Use this information to create thoughtful social media posts all month long. It helps those who are feeling the impact of this erasure and violence be seen and make clear to those who aren’t aware or don’t think it’s really happening that it is.
If you teach one patron about today’s reality for queer people, you’re making a significant difference.
*
It is impossible to completely safeguard against what will happen in any library regarding Pride displays. But, knowing about the tactics used by book banners ~parental rights activists~ and knowing where and how to advocate on behalf of LGBTQ+ books — and people — helps in preparing for the best, most effective library pride displays.
Among the suggestions below, you’ll have easy-to-implement and manage ideas, alongside some that will likely need to be done more subversively. Maybe subversively isn’t the word, honestly. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that some of these suggestions may bring direct activism into the picture in a way that has not always been common in public libraries.
But in today’s highly political library world, sitting back quietly is not an option, even if it is appealing and even if it is easier than preparing to fight. Be your own advocate right here and right now.
1. Take photos of your display and/or track the books being put on it
There are many practical reasons for tracking what is going on a Pride display. Seeing and ensuring good representation of your collection and community is useful. It’s also helpful in the wake of Hide the Pride style campaigns — if books go “missing” en masse, you’ll have recorded what all of those books had in common. In an era of increasingly violent forms of censorship, including recent burnings of library titles, tracking your displays will provide a paper trail.
2. Use QR Codes/Images of Book Covers for Displays
Because Pride displays are popular both with readers and bigots, consider having images of the books on display printed with a QR code or tinyurl link to their catalog entry. This will let your readers request titles that might not be on display and/or can be helpful if those titles go wandering. If you are in a library with little or no display space, use these as a display on the ends of your bookshelf, on a window space, or any other surface where patrons can see them.
3. Encourage Engagement
A book display is fantastic because, generally, people know they’ll find books at the library. But you can make your display even more engaging in a few ways.
- Add reader’s advisory materials. This could be as simple as bookmarks or fliers with more LGBTQ+ books on them or a sign holder with a QR code to a curated list of queer books in your catalog.
- Include fliers and information for local LGBTQ+ inclusive support groups and community organizations. This might be cards for local queer-friendly churches or bakeries, for local GSA groups, etc. If the library is a community resource, help spread the word about additional welcoming and supportive resources in the community.
- Either of the above would be an opportunity to create a “donate to” call to action. You could have a sign reading “Want to support local LGBTQ+ youth? Scan the QR code to donate to our local chapter of PFLAG.” Whether or not you help raise money is not as vital as making it clear you have supportive spaces that you want people to know about.
- Encourage library users to provide feedback on the display and do it right at the display. I know, saying QR codes makes it sound like I’m in 2009. But a QR code to an online form or even a box with some golf pencils and paper that asks people to share their thoughts on the types of books and programs the library offers can go miles in helping you find your local supporters…and detractors.
- How about a sign saying, “Did you know you can request books for us to purchase?” with a call to action telling your patrons you’d love to expand your LGBTQ+ books and, if they want to suggest any, do so via the print/online form. If they include their name, they’ll be the first to know about the book’s arrival if purchased.
- If your library is blessed with the space, create an opportunity for patrons to make a DIY LGBTQ+ display. Have a blank space with a sign saying, “Share your favorite LGBTQ+ books here,” and invite folks to grab a favorite and put it on display. Bonus: this is some easy and fun passive programming, and if you worry about the books being checked out — a good worry, probably — offer some art supplies for folks to draw the cover of their favorite LGBTQ+ book.
- Print and share the 56 small tasks to be proactive against censorship in the 2025 post, and feel free to make it more user-friendly in the library. There is a spreadsheet with each of the tasks listed, linked in the piece to make copy/pasting easier. I grant my permission for use as long as whatever you create credits me and my work here at Book Riot. This crediting will further spread the word about Literary Activism and book censorship news.
4. Track Your Stats
Remember the part about keeping tabs on what books are on display? You’ll want to look at your checkout rates on those books sometime in mid- or late July and see how circulation of those titles compares to the previous months. Chances are, it’ll be higher. That right there is worth sharing with your community, your boards, and other community stakeholders. Once people know you have the books, they want to read them.
5. Be Frank About Intellectual Freedom and the Library
Even if you don’t have the physical space for it, you should connect with your patrons digitally to keep them aware of book bans — and the LGBTQ+ books under fire — across the country. Let patrons and visitors know there are incredible resources talking about First Amendment rights and intellectual freedom. Include a handout and/or link on your website/social media to sources such as: Get Ready Stay Ready, PEN America’s reports on the state of book bans in America, EveryLibrary, Penguin Random House’s Book Ban Resource Hub, and our own Literary Activism newsletter.
If you have a local group doing anti-censorship work, highlight them. If you don’t, share resources on how to begin an anti-censorship group.
Include information about local elections and why they matter (and if you’re in a school or library, you can tie that neatly into how your institution is taxpayer-funded and taxpayers have the right to elect individuals who work on behalf of a whole community, not just those with close ties to them). You can also include information about local school boards and why they’re vital, as well as how people can get involved in their library board.
6. Be Prepared for a Challenge — and Be Transparent About Patron Rights
Be prepared to potentially have a book challenged. In the current book banning climate, your display may become a target for the small number of censors who think they speak on behalf of an entire community. But know, too, you can head it off by making sure your collection development policies are up-to-date, and you can stand behind them. The more accessible the information, the more transparent you are, and the more censors cannot argue that you hinder their rights to demand books not be accessible to an entire community.
If there is currently a book ban happening locally, highlight that. Whether it is your institution or not, giving these displays a local angle is extremely important. Believing this is a red state or blue state thing is dangerous and disingenuous; people deserve to know that it is happening in their backyard because it IS happening in their backyard.
7. Do No Display At All and Explain Why
It might not be legal to highlight queer books in your state or community. It might be PERFECTLY legal and even encouraged.
But imagine for a moment what a book display draped in a black sheet might look like with a sign as simple as “these books are illegal to share.”
There are a lot of implications to this, including that those who are already suppressed continue to be suppressed and that this silencing plays right into it. But also know it might be highly effective — what happens if, during Pride month, every queer book in the library is put behind the desk or popped into storage, and people cannot access them?
This is the reality in far too many places.
If you go this route, focus on the people, not the books. This is where creating handouts and accompanying material to educate patrons about censorship and intellectual freedom can do wonders. The people we need to reach are not online and may likely have no idea what’s happening across the country or in their own backyard.
But perhaps this can be one step in educating and waking them up.
Again: proceed with caution here. You’ll know if it’s right for your community or not. It’ll make a hell of a statement, and if it makes people mad, maybe they’ll be ready to write those letters and show up to the board meetings, demanding those books be put back, be made accessible, and that queer voices deserve just as much space as every other voice — June and beyond.
Another take on this idea might be wrapping the books in brown paper bags or putting them into Ziploc bags, which would create one extra step of annoyance for your patrons who want to borrow the titles. There’s your opportunity to talk about what book bans do.
Some additional resources for library Pride displays you might find helpful include this guide to what to do when you see Pride displays in libraries (perfect for sharing on your library’s social media, as this is patron-facing) and recent stories of the fight for and over Pride displays in public libraries.
