Burbank libraries move to grow LGBTQ section

Local reference librarian Hubert Kozak is behind a growing effort to expand the book offerings at Burbank libraries for patrons who belong to the city’s LGBTQ community, and he’s hoping to receive feedback on how to build the collection this Tuesday when the Buena Vista branch hosts Lillian Faderman, author of the acclaimed book, “The Gay Revolution.”

Kozak is intent on reaching out to the community to learn what books he should have on the shelves. Over the past few years, he’s followed journals and book reviews, and kept tabs on which books make the American Library Assn.’s Rainbow Book List.

“I don’t think they know what in fact we have,” he said of local patrons. “And we’re committed to find out what would be of need and interest to them in terms of developing our collections.”

Lately, his area of focus is expanding the fiction collection, noting such books tend to be the most popular.

“I think we’re looking to find out how we can develop the collection and in what direction. We’re still feeling our way along,” he said. “It’s more a question of knowing what to buy.”

He hopes to ask those who attend Tuesday’s talk with Faderman.

The author’s latest book is collecting rave reviews and was described by The Economist as “The most comprehensive history to date of America’s gay-rights movement.”

Reached by phone on Thursday, Faderman said she came out as a lesbian in 1956, then a teenager in Los Angeles with “a phony ID that got me into gay bars.”

Back then, she recalled those who belonged to the community were labeled, criminals, sinners and subversives.

“It was the era, the kind of fear that I came of age in. It was really quite awful,” she said.

Her book provides a narrative of the LGBTQ civil rights struggle she produced from over 150 interviews she conducted, from as early as the 1980s, with those who have fought to realize civil rights.

She shares a story of one woman whose parents withdrew her from college in the 1950s and sent her away to receive psychiatric treatment because she was a lesbian. The girl was later threatened that if she continued to be a lesbian, she would be sent to a state institution to be lobotomized, but ultimately saved herself because she pretended to be straight, she said.

“She died at the age of 76 still a lesbian,” Faderman added.

Between the 1950s and now, after having witnessed the 2013 landmark Supreme Court ruling that the federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional, Faderman sought to make one point clear as she set out to write her book.

“Most people, if they don’t know our history, they look around and say, ‘That was quick.’ What I wanted to show, is that it wasn’t quick. It was a long struggle. People began to fight back in 1950.”

Faderman will discuss and sign copies of her book on Oct. 20 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Buena Vista branch, 300 N. Buena Vista Street.