Stonewall Library & Archives
Encyclopedia
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...
which focuses on Lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, Gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, Bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
, and Transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
(LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
) cultural and historical documents and publications. The circulating collection currently contains over 18,000 books, videos, and DVDs; making it the largest circulating LGBT library in the southeastern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The library is open to the public, but membership is required to check materials out from the library.
History
The Stonewall Library & Archives was founded in 1973 by members of the Stonewall Committee in Hollywood, FloridaHollywood, Florida
-Demographics:As of 2000, there were 59,673 households out of which 24.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.2% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of...
and was first directed by Mark N. Silber. The collection remained open only to a select group of colleagues until 25 May 1985. Five years later, the library merged with the Boca Raton-based Southern Gay Archives and they formed Stonewall Library & Archives, Inc. In 2001, the library and archive moved into the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida at 1717 North Andrews Avenue.
The center, however, is slated for demolition, so Stonewall began looking for other options. They were approached by Broward County, who offered the collection space at the Fort Lauderdale branch of the Broward County library
Broward county library
The Broward County Library was established in 1973 as the result of a campaign by the Friends of the Fort Lauderdale Library in Florida, the United States. The system began issuing borrower cards on June 17 of 1974 for 270,000 items in four branches. Over the following three decades, many of the...
, which already includes tenant ArtServe. The Broward County Commission approved the move in a 9-0 vote on 10 June 2007.
The new location opened in February of 2009 at 1300 East Sunrise Blvd in Fort Lauderdale Florida
Controversy
On 10 July 2007, the Fort Lauderdale city commission also voted, on a 3-2 vote, to allow the library to occupy a space in the building that is city owned, but under long-term lease to the county. Before the vote, mayor Jim NaugleJim Naugle
James T. Naugle is an American real estate broker who served as mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Although a lifelong Democrat, Naugle frequently voted for and supported Republican candidates...
denounced the library, claiming that it contained pornographic materials. Executive Director Jack Rutland noted that the three titles singled out by Naugle were all part of the library's non-circulating archive of 7000 titles, maintained for historical and research purposes only. The dispute was another round in a stormy relationship between the city's large gay community and Naugle, who has repeatedly made statements that are perceived as anti-gay.