might seem extremely tame in the present climate: D. H. Lawrence Lady
Chatterley's Lover, Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer, William H. Burroughs The
Naked Lunch, Ralph Ginsberg avant-garde magazine Evergreen Review
( Carmichael 1995a). Not until 1970, however, when the first dissertation on gay
behavior was published ( Humphreys 1970), was the stage set for changing research
conventions concerning homosexuality ( Desroches 1990; Murden 1993; Nardi
1995). Since that time, and particularly in the 1990s, lesbigay studies and queer
theory have become prolific academic specialties ( Taylor 1993), not to mention a
profitable publishing venue. The unspeakable has become speakable, even if the
hysterical tone of talk-show debate seems to dominate much of the dialogue, and
the lingering specters of antigay violence, harassment, and discrimination, some of
them egged on by federal law and mandate, serve to remind the lesbigay community
of the illusory nature of their achievements. Homosexual "identities"--never mind
the definition of that term, sexual act or lifestyle or unfortunate mannerism or
eccentricity--can rob their holders instantly of their jobs or even their lives.
Without a history, the very "identity" of lesbigays becomes tenuous, an easy picking
for the "ism" of the moment, and the gay self gazes into a mirror without reflec-
tions. Part of the greater purpose of this volume is to clarify some of the illusions,
emotional detritus, and light-barriers that obscure that reflection, using librarianship
as a focus.

Since the library, or at least the literature that it housed, was historically
paramount to the coming-out process of many lesbigays, it is perhaps not surprising
that gays and lesbians in the American Library Association (ALA) formed the first
gay professional association in the world in 1970. Since that time, the energies of
ALA's Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Task Force (GLBTF) have been devoted largely
to service concerns for lesbigay patrons ( Gough and Greenblatt 1990), the
development of nonpejorative subject headings and classification schemes ( Berman
1981), the bibliographic control ( Ridinger 1997) and promotion ( Gittings 1978) of
lesbigay literature, both through the annual programs of the GLBTF and its annual
Gay Book Awards. The ALA has practiced nondiscrimination against lesbigays
through its own employment policies since 1974, although it has no jurisdiction
over individual libraries. Librarianship generally has acted only as de facto midwife
to the lesbigay movement, often unwittingly and sometimes unwillingly. Moreover,
the ideology of American librarianship as it has evolved historically and the
customs of individual practice in different library environments contain elements
uncongenial to lesbigay collections, and therefore to research on lesbigay librarians.
In the public library, this fact strikes home to the core value of freedom of inquiry
expressed in ALA's "The Freedom to Read" Statement ( Broderick 1993).

The characteristics of the classic professions, with which for several decades at
least, sociologists seemed secure, traditionally excluded librarianship, teaching,
nursing, and social work as "feminized" "semi-professions" ( Simpson and Simpson
1969). The niceties of this distinction have been discredited in recent years by

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