Case Study: LGBTQ collections in rural public libraries in the American South
Questions:
1. How comprehensive and relevant are the LGBTQ collections in rural public libraries in the American South?
2. How comprehensive and relevant do librarians in rural public libraries in the American South believe their LGBTQ collections are?
The case study described here would be a holistic multiple case study to allow for comparison not only between LGBTQ collections in comparable libraries but also the beliefs about the LGBTQ collections by the librarians responsible for building and maintaining these collections. A single case study would be of interest but would ultimately not provide any measure of generalizability; while a multiple case study might not either, it would be more likely to, depending on the outcomes. The units of analysis in this study would be the individual libraries.
There would be a large amount of basic catalog searching involved in answering research question 1. Each library’s catalog would need to be searched by keyword using a specified list of terms to determine the extent of the LGBTQ materials in the collection. After this list has been used, a title search based on popular and award-winning LGBTQ literature would also be used. These searches will also reveal whether the library’s cataloging practices are thorough and accurate. After determining what sort of LGBTQ collection is present, librarians at each library would be interviewed about the LGBTQ materials available (or not) in their library.
Were this study to be redesigned to include larger numbers of libraries, it would certainly paint a more comprehensive picture of this issue in this particular region. One could certainly do a study in which the collections were analyzed for range and type of LGBTQ materials available, but to only seek librarian opinions about the state of their LGBTQ collections would be nearly useless without the collection data with which to compare them.