Immersed in LGBTQ+ stories
I first visited the Pat Parker/Vito Russo (PP/VR) Library soon after it reopened to visitors in October 2024. I was ecstatic to find there was a library not only dedicated to LGBTQ+ material, but one that was also free, volunteer-run, and open to all. In a rapidly gentrified gay world and city, the West Village can feel alienating and depressing. So many queer spaces–from the commercial, to the public, to the unauthorized and reclaimed–are gone forever.
The Library is a community space in the heart of a neighborhood that is now at odds with its history, and it unapologetically celebrates the vibrancy of the past and present of the LGBTQ+ community. Its holdings include fiction, memoirs, biographies, children’s books, poetry, graphic novels, and arts and photography reference books. The library offers its community of visitors and volunteers an opportunity to be immersed in material that speaks to the breadth of their experiences.
The Library at The Center
Founded in 1991, the library is a gathering place on the fourth floor of The Center, open on Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Once you’re there, making an account and checking out a book or DVD (and up to three) can happen in a matter of minutes, or you can spend hours browsing. The volunteer librarians are warm, welcoming, and passionate about connecting others to material by and about people in the community. This incredible resource is underutilized by that community since its reopening, with a few visitors coming each session. The steering committee and volunteers are expanding outreach to increase engagement. If you’re reading this, you should visit too!
The library shares space with The LGBT Community Center National History Archive, a community-based archive that collects, preserves, and makes available to the public the documentation of LGBTQ+ lives and organizations centered in and around New York. I am lucky to be interning with the archive this summer and am passionate about making LGBTQ+ material as accessible as possible to the community it speaks to.
Celebrating the stories of Pride
To celebrate the connection between the two entities, the archive and library collaborated to host a community-outreach event on Pride Sunday, as part of The Center’s “Pride Pitstop.” Over 50 visitors came through the space to browse archival magazines and newsletters, make buttons, and check out books from PP/VR. I selected issues from popular titles like On Our Backs and Transvestia from The Center Archive’s Periodical Collection. It was also an exciting opportunity to share a few items from my personal collection, including a deck of Annie Sprinkle’s Post Modern Pinup playing cards. Attendees included longtime volunteers, members of other LGBTQ+ archives (such as the Lesbian Herstory Archives), and visitors who had not yet stepped foot on the 4th floor. The most popular activity was button making. Crafty attendees made dozens of unique buttons using collage material, or duplicated designs of archival buttons like the iconic “Gay is Good” and “Out of the Closet and Into the Street!” By the end of the afternoon, everyone had a new button to wear out that night, or at least to next year’s Pride.
The Bigger Picture
To activate the space and better serve the community, public programming will continue through the fall. The exhibition Everyone Watches Dyke Sports: Queer Histories of New York Liberty Basketball is on view through September 28, followed in mid-October by a multimedia installation exploring memory work, technologies, AIDS activism, and care.
To make an appointment with The Center Archive or learn more about its collections, please visit gaycenter.org/archives/.
The Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library is not currently accepting book donations; inquiries regarding programming and volunteering can be made to [email protected].
