It’s Pride Month, which means we’re super proud to feature an independent LGBT2QIA+ library that’s been supporting their Vancouver community since the 1980s! It was my pleasure to interview Out On The Shelves (OOTS) Library Co-Coordinator Rio Picollo, MLIS (they/them) this month:

Who are you, and what is your mission—your “raison d’être”?

Out On The Shelves Library (OOTS) is an independent community library serving the

LGBT2QIA+ community of Vancouver, British Columbia since the early 1980s. We foster a free, accessible, and safe space for LGBT2QIA+ people to discover and share stories and resources centering on LGBT2QIA+ experiences.

Tell us some interesting things about how your library supports the community.

We’re in the midst of a project in collaboration with the University of British Columbia School of Information to improve our subject tags to help patrons discover works featuring identities that aren’t well represented in mainstream library cataloguing. We routinely get requests for things like books by trans women of colour or YA fiction with non-binary characters, and until now we’ve relied heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations between library volunteers or searching through curated book lists for that information. We’re excited to create a more organized, accessible way for our patrons to find the types of materials they’re looking for from within our catalogue.

What a wonderful way to increase visibility for underrepresented identities. Speaking of your collections, what are some of your favorite items?

Our new seed library, Out in the Dirt, which offers free seeds and starters, as well as programming on sustainable urban farming and food sharing within the Vancouver queer community.

What’s a particular challenge your library experiences?

Being located on the far west side of Vancouver, it can be difficult for folks from elsewhere across the Lower Mainland to make the trip to our location. We have plans in the works for a sort of interlibrary loan system partnered with the newly developed Vancouver Black Library located in Chinatown to help increase the reach of both our organizations.

What is your favorite thing about TinyCat, and what’s something you’d love to see implemented/developed?

We love how quick and easy it is to catalogue materials with LibraryThing. It offers such a low barrier to entry for folks new to library cataloguing. In the future, we’d love to be able to store info for duplicate copies under the same bib record.

We hope to add copy management in the future as well! We’ll be sure to announce any changes on that front. Thanks for your feedback.

Want to learn more about OOTS? Visit their website at https://outontheshelveslibrary.com/, follow them on Twitter and Instagram, and explore their full TinyCat collection here.

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To read up on TinyCat’s previous Libraries of the Month, visit the TinyCat Post archive here.

Want to be considered for TinyCat’s Library of the Month? Send us a Tweet @TinyCat_lib or email Kristi at kristi@librarything.com.

Labels: libraries, Library of the Month, TinyCat