How Queer Are Our Curricula? Perspectives on Queer LIS Education in Germany

The compilation of a queer bibliography requires librarians who deeply understand and actively engage with queer perspectives. This involves evaluating and shaping factors that contribute to a queer library, such as collection diversity, classification and tagging systems, collection presentation, and services supporting queer patrons and creators. Creating an openly queer library extends beyond these elements, involving self-reflection, community engagement, and using libraries' institutional voices to advocate for queer communities. Librarians need to be trained to connect libraries with communities, to create spaces for communities to come together, to embrace multi-faceted perspectives and to ensure that all voices are heard, even when they challenge existing library or societal norms. They must also be equipped to navigate complex emotional, social, and ethical challenges associated with collecting materials about sex, gender and sexuality. However, queer perspectives are still largely missing from Library and Information Science (LIS) education in Germany, as implied through conversations with a network of queer librarians. This gap is both a cause and a consequence of a lack of queer LIS literature and discourse and a general reluctance among librarians to voice personal perspectives and libraries to advocate institutionally. With our project currently in process, we explore existing integrations of queer perspectives in LIS curricula in Germany and investigate the need for increased awareness and engagement based on feedback from faculty, students, and the library community. Through this effort, we aim to initiate and cultivate queer perspectives within LIS curricula, ultimately shaping queer LIS literature and discourse in Germany and transforming libraries into spaces that truly reflect and support the diversity of the communities they serve. This is essential for libraries to contribute substantially to a queer bibliography in the making.