Submitted for consideration to 2005 ASIST SIG USE Annual Research Symposium:

Connecting Research and Practice: Special Populations

Proposal Synopsis:

Research on the Information Needs, Seeking and Use of

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Queer People

July 11, 2005

Paulette Rothbauer, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Information Studies

University of Toronto

140 St. George St.

Toronto, Ontario

M5S 3G6

416 9778-5460

A picture of the information behavior of people who claim lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer sexual orientations and sexual identities has emerged within the last 15 years in a series of reports of research into information seeking activities, special information collections and materials and information practices of this special population. Five main areas of inquiry constitute this body of research:

1.Collections, holdings and reviews of LGBQ literature and materials;

2.Knowledge organization as represented by classificatory schemes and indexes;

3. Information needs and information seeking;

4.Information use as examined through reading practices;

5.Lesbigay history and literary analyses of LGBQ literature.

The findings of these studies are a litany of inadequate collections, scarcity of materials, inscrutable systems of access, impoverished information service, skewed and imperfect representation -- all entrenched in social and political contexts that make disclosure and marginalization equally fraught with risk.

For this symposium I will provide a brief summary of the studies that used human subjects in attempts to understand the information needs, uses and seeking of LGBQ people (see for example, Creelman and Harris 1990; Whitt 1993; Joyce and Schrader 1997; Stenback and Schrader 1999; Rothbauer 2004; Curry 2006). These studies emerged alongside important reports of professional practice (especially as related to the creation of access to LGBQ materials) – work that will also be introduced to seminar participants. The strength of this body of research is its unapologetic privileging of a marginalized and vulnerable population, bringing sensitive attention to ways in which people find access to and use information that is often difficult to locate, and frequently even more difficult to use for fear of disclosing one’s sexual identity. My own research builds on the foundation provided by this groundbreaking work: Lynne McKechnie and I examined holdings of GLBQ literature for young adults in Canadian libraries (Rothbauer and McKechnie 1999); we then looked at the treatment of these novels by the review media (Rothbauer and McKechnie 2000); in my recent dissertation research (Rothbauer 2004, and as reported in Rothbauer 2004b, 2005c) I investigated the voluntary reading practices and information seeking behavior of lesbian, bisexual and queer young women.

This symposium would provide a welcome venue to explore some pressing issues in an attempt to move research with this special population forward. I am particularly interested in two methodological themes concerning the assumptions and positions of the researcher:

  • How useful is the metaphor of the “homosexual closet” as a starting point for research into the information behavior of this population (and for the provision of services)? I would draw on recent work that begins with a critique of this approach (Rothbauer 2005).
  • What is the role of reflexivity in human information behavior research with special populations? What is appropriate for us to say about ourselves? When and how should we say it? How does the conventional stance of researcher-as-instrument fall short? I’d like to explore the tension between the invisibility of the special population and the invisibility of the researcher(s) using my own research with queer young women as a starting point but would like to extend the discussion to the experiences of symposium participants in the conduct of their own research with other marginalized and potentially invisible populations.

References:

Creelman, Janet E.A., and Roma Harris. (1990). Coming out: The information needs of

lesbians. Collection Building 10 (3/4): 37-41.

Curry, Ann. (2006). If I ask, will they answer? Evaluating public library reference service to

gay/lesbian youth. Reference and User Services Quarterly(Forthcoming).

Joyce, Steven, and Alvin M. Schrader. 1997. Hidden perceptions: Edmonton gay males and the

Edmonton Public Library. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science/Revue canadienne des sciences de l’information et de bibliothéconomie 22(1): 19-37.

Rothbauer, Paulette M. (2005). Locating the library as place among lesbian, gay, bisexual and

queer patrons, under review.

Rothbauer, Paulette M. (2004). Finding and Creating Possibility: Reading in the Lives of

Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Young Women. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario.

Rothbauer, Paulette M. (2004b). The Internet in the reading accounts of lesbian and queer

young women: Failed searches and unsanctioned reading. Canadian Journal of

Information & Library Science 28(4), in press.

Rothbauer, Paulette M. (2004c). ‘People aren’t afraid anymore, but it’s hardto find books’:

Reading practices that inform the personal and social identities of self-identified

lesbian and queer young women. Canadian Journal of Information & Library Science

28(3), in press.

Rothbauer, Paulette M., and Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie. 1999. Gay and lesbian fiction for

young adults: A survey of the holdings in Canadian public libraries. Collection

Building 18(1): 32-39.

Rothbauer, Paulette M. and Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie. 2000. The treatment of gayand lesbian

fiction for young adults: a study of the holdings in canadianpublic libraries. Collection Building 19(1): 5-16.

Stenback, Tanis L., and Alvin M. Schrader. 1999. Venturing from the closet: A qualitative study

of the information needs of lesbians. Public Library Quarterly 17(3): 37-50.

Whitt, Alisa J. 1993. The information needs of lesbians. Library and Information Science

Research 15: 275-88.