Information access among GLBT College Students:

Matthew J. Kingston
L503 User Needs and Behaviors
Prof. Charlotte Ford
December 14, 1998

As a college student and a gay man, I have been interested in the information needs and access problems of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) college students since I entered college myself. I have faced the frustrations of inadequate or nonexistent materials and mildly homophobic responses from library staff when requesting help in locating GLBT-related materials. As a student working on a masters in library science, I feel compelled to study this user group and their information needs.

Empirical data from the three studies I found of GLBT people and their information use (discussed below) indicate that many in the GLBT community have attended or graduated from college. GLBT college students as a group are a particularly diverse bunch. They come from both genders and all ethnic, cultural, religious, and ability backgrounds. The common thread that holds them together as a group is their less common sexual or gender orientation. The homophobia from other students, faculty, or staff that we GLBT students feel acts as a binding agent to bring the community together.

GLBT students have a variety of informational needs. They range from informational needs about the coming out process to academic information for a wide range of topics dealing with GLBT issues to recreational reading. The information needs of GLBT people in general have only in the past few years become a real focus of research, and GLBT college students have been rarely studied.

The difficulty in locating materials for this paper only highlights how much more work and research must be done in the area. The three areas of personal interest that I wanted to focus on in this paper are as follows:

Indiana University at Bloomington is lucky to have a GLBT specific library with a large number of holdings (1700). This library was established as a location where GLBT students could find GLBT-related to check out on a private, confidential basis. Unfortunately, the GLBT Library is underused. I hoped to find possible ways of increasing its use.

As a reference assistant in the Undergraduate Library at Indiana University, I have infrequently been asked for help in locating GLBT-related information in the libraries (and most requests appear to come from seemingly non-GLBT students working on GLBT issue papers). I hoped to find ways in which myself and others can provide outreach to our GLBT student patrons and encourage them to ask for reference assistance.

Ever since I started college and had free, fast access to the Internet, I have used the web as a source of GLBT-related information for a variety of information needs. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many other GLBT students do the same. I hoped to find scholarly research on this phenomenon.

To answer these and other questions, I conducted a survey of the GLBT student community on the Indiana University campus (which is discussed later in the paper).

Coming out: the information needs of lesbians, by Janet A. E. Creelman and Roma M. Harris, is the earliest published empirical study of members of the GLBT community (focusing specifically on lesbian and bisexual woman) that I could locate. The researchers interviewed 50 women in two Canadian cities and asked them about their information needs during the time in which they were coming out of the closet (a time of information need that is universally common to all GLBT people). The study focused on the specific types of questions that the women had wanted to address during this process (i.e. "coming to terms with a lesbian identity," "coming out to others," and "finding others and learning the rules"). The study also looked at the sources they consulted when looking for the answers to these questions. 78% of the respondents reported consulting the library, but 53% reported that they had not found the library helpful. Participants explained that they had either not found any materials or that the materials found did not include "practical lifestyle information," had "focused on the experiences of gay men rather than on those of lesbians," or were "depressing or negative." Creelman and Harris recommend that libraries expand their collections to meet these information needs of lesbians.

Following in the footsteps of Creelman and Harris, Alisa J. Whitt , in The information needs of lesbians, conducted a survey with 141 lesbian/bisexual respondents in North Carolina. Whitt found similar results – 61.9% of the participants reported having looked for lesbian-related information in the library. Again, many respondents were unsatisfied with the amount or quality of information found. Whitt found that many of the women’s informational needs had changed over time after having come out, shifting from "factual" to "entertainment" needs and from "general" to more "specific needs." Whitt recommends that libraries take these type of collection development considerations into consideration.

Whitt also surveyed her respondents regarding their requests of library staff for assistance in locating lesbian-related information. A majority of the respondents had not asked for help, citing as reasons that they were "afraid of the reaction of the librarian and other staff" or that they knew "more about lesbian topics than any public librarian [they’d] ever met."

The third (and most recently published) empirical study is Hidden perceptions: Edmonton gay males and the Edmonton Public Library by Steven L. Joyce and Alvin M. Schrader. The study focuses on gay/bisexual men and their use of the Edmonton Public Library (EPL) in Edmonton, Canada. 46 participants responded to Joyce and Schrader’s survey, answering questions similar to those in Creelman and Harris’s and Whitt’s studies. 25 of the 36 respondents who reported having used the EPL in the past year had also searched for gay-related information. Of these 25, 14 felt "somewhat dissatisfied with what was available." 16 of the 25 said that they would be "somewhat comfortable" or "very comfortable" asking for help in locating gay-related materials. One respondent noted being "very satisfied" with the service he received while another was "somewhat dissatisfied" and suggested that the staff receive "a little sensitivity/diversity training."

Two article I found dealt with library services for GLBT people in academic libraries: Suzy Taraba’s "Collecting gay and lesbian material in an academic library" and Michael A. Lutes and Michael S. Montgomery’s "Out in the stacks: Opening Academic Library Collections to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students." Taraba recommends identifying the clientele of the GLBT collection (which includes students, faculty, and staff), identifying academic and extracurricular needs for GBLT related-information, surveying the existing GLBT collection, developing a collection development policy for the GLBT collection, and promoting the collection’s use. Lutes and Montgomery make similar recommendations, also noting the benefits of developing a guide or pathfinder handout for the collection, providing diversity training for library staff, and creating a "neutral" or "hate-free zone" in the library for people to use the collection if they feel uncomfortable about checking out materials.

I had great difficulty in finding any published research on GLBT people and their use of the Internet as an information source. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Internet is popular among GLBT people (Steve Friess, in an article in the gay magazine The Advocate, reports that over half of online service America Online’s chat rooms focus on GLBT topics). Use of the Internet is also popular among GLBT students who frequently have free, fast access to the web through their educational institutions. Possibly because of the relatively short time that the Internet has been available to students, no published research has been conducted.

After completing my literature review and noting that few empirical studies of GLBT people and their information needs had been completed (none focusing specifically on GLBT college students), I decided to try to complete a survey study of my own. Because of the short period of time in which I had to design, administer, and tabulate my survey, I had to create a relatively simple, short survey form that students would be willing to fill out during their busy schedules at the end of the Fall semester. This survey was modeled after those seen in the articles in my literature review and modeled on principles discussed in class readings and lectures.

I tried to design my survey to address three specific questions that I had about GLBT college students and their information needs and use patterns. In addition to trying to compile general information on their patterns of information access, I wanted to look specifically at:

In addition, I also requested some information for demographic purposes. The text of the survey is attached as appendix A.

I decided to administer this survey to the members of Indiana University’s GLBT student organization, OUT (of which I am a member). Because I was unable to attend a weekly meeting to distribute this survey in person, I decided to use the organization’s mass email mailing list to send a copy of the survey to each member on the list (approximately 390 addresses). I received a total of 18 responses back through email over the course of one week.

One possible limitation of this survey might be results of the question about use of the Internet as an information source. Because this survey was distributed through email, there may be a predisposition among the respondents towards its use. In any future attempts to survey the GLBT college student population, I will distribute print copies of the survey in addition to through email.

I received a variety of responses to the survey. The demographic data that I requested in the survey was sex, age, class year, orientation, and whether or not they were "out." Several categories’ responses were slightly surprising.

Of the 18 respondents, 11 (61.1%) stated that they were male and 6 (33.3%) stated that they were female – which wasn’t surprising because the membership of OUT is predominately male. One respondent (5.5%), however, listed his sex as "N" and orientation as "M," leading me to believe that the individual was trying to convey that he is a female-to-male transgendered person. It was at this point that I realized that I did not provide a clear way in the survey for individuals to identify themselves as transgendered. This might have resulted in other respondents not identifying themselves as transgendered or might have made transgendered people feel unwelcome to fill out the survey. Any future survey work I do in the GLBT community will take this into consideration and try to provide for a clearer way for transgendered people to identify themselves.

Regarding sexual orientation, all 11 (61.1%) males identified themselves as "gay." 4 (22.2% of the total respondents) of the 6 females identified themselves as "lesbian." The other 2 females identified themselves a "straight-but-not-narrow," i.e. heterosexual "allies" of the GLBT community (OUT has many of these "allies" on their mailing list). These allies often have family members or loved ones who are GLBT, and may try to find information for them or themselves. The remaining respondent, who had identified his sex as "N" and orientation as "M," did not provide any additional information that could have identified him as straight, bisexual, or gay. None of the respondents identified themselves as bisexuals.

13 of the 18 respondents (72.2%) stated that they were indeed "out," including the transgendered individual. 3 (16.6%) responded that they were "somewhat" or "kind of" out. The final 2 (11.1%) respondents had previously identified themselves as straight (though one jokingly referred to herself as "out as a heterosexual"). Considering that all respondents were members of the campus GLBT student organization, it is not surprising that there were no "closeted" individuals. Other studies of the GLBT community have produced similar results because out GLBT people are the easiest to find and are usually more willing to fill out surveys or be interviewed than closeted GLBT people. If I conduct any future survey work in the GLBT community, I will make more attempts to reach closeted individuals by distributing surveys at the campus GLBT Office and Health Center, where many students in the process of coming out often go for support or counseling.

In the class ranking category, 3 (16.6%) responded that they were "freshmen," 4 (22.2%) as "sophomores," 3 (16.6%) as "juniors," 4 (22.2%) as "seniors," and 3 (16.6%) as "grad students." One final respondent (5.5%), a 23-year old university staff member, is currently not a student, but may attend grad school in the future. The ages of the respondents ranged from 18 to 38 (the average was 22.5).

Thus, I feel that I received an adequate range of responses and can make some generalizations from them.

The responses to the survey questions were mostly brief, though several respondents provided rich, valuable qualitative data.

Regarding use, the table below shows how many of the respondents had used each of the 4 information sources (Main Library, GLBT Library, Public Library, and Internet):

Use of Information Sources (18 responses)
	Main Library	GLBT Library	Public Library	Internet
Yes	10 (55.5%)	10 (55.5%)	8 (44.4%)	18 (100%)
No	8 (44.4%)	8 (44.4%)	10 (55.5%)	0 (0.0%)

Several respondents mentioned that in addition to the Main Library, they have also used the Education branch library while doing GLBT research. As per requested in the survey, I asked respondents to also include use of their hometown public libraries, which several respondents reported having done.

The following table shows how each of the information sources ranked in frequency of use compared to each other. Several of the respondents did not answer this question.

Ranking of Information Sources (18 responses)
	Main Library	GLBT Library	Public Library	Internet
1^st	2 (11.1%)	2 (11.1%)	0 (0.0%)	13 (72.2%)
2^nd	3 (16.6%)	5 (27.7%)	3 (16.6%)	3 (16.6%)
3^rd	6 (33.3%)	3 (16.6%)	4 (22.2%)	1 (5.5%)
4^th	3 (16.6%)	4 (22.2%)	7 (38.8%)	0 (0.0%)
Not ranked	4 (22.2%)	4 (22.2%)	4 (22.2%)	1 (5.5%)

As theorized, the Internet was clearly the most utilized source (one respondent wrote that the WWW was the only source he ever consulted because he was able to use it to answer all of his information needs). Respondents reported using the Internet to find everything from academic information for papers to current, up-to-date information about HIV/AIDS and different medical treatments to online erotica (which may or not be considered a valid information need).

Public libraries emerged as a more commonly unused source of information. While a few respondents mentioned their hometown public libraries as places where they read GLBT periodicals or had done research for classes, others remarked that they didn’t feel that like Public libraries had many resources or provided anything they couldn’t find in other locations (ex, Main Library or on the Internet).

I was particularly interested in seeing what reasons people gave for not utilizing the GLBT Library on campus. A few respondents remarked that they found the GLBT Library and its librarian, Carmen, to be invaluable sources of information. Others disagreed. One respondent said that he didn’t "know where it is and [hadn’t] felt compelled to find out." Several said that they were "too lazy to walk over there." Another respondent said that he didn’t ever think to use the GLBT Library because its holdings were not accessible via the campus online catalog. Finally, like Public libraries, some respondents felt that they could access the information elsewhere (ex, Main Library or on the Internet).

The last piece of information that I tried to discover through the survey was whether respondents had attempted to seek help from a reference librarian or other staff member when searching for GLBT information. 8 (44.4%) of the respondents reported having asked for assistance, while 10 (55.5%) had never asked for help. Those who had asked for help often mentioned that staff had been very helpful. Two respondents named specific staff members who had helped them in the past. However, one lesbian respondent remarked:

The 10 who reported not having ever asked for assistance gave a variety of reasons for not doing so. A common response was that they had never had any difficulty in finding GLBT information in the library. One respondent (who had reported that he had never used the library) stated that because he didn’t think the library had any GLBT materials, he hadn’t asked any library staff for help finding them. One final respondent wrote:

What can account for the preference of the Internet as a first choice information source among GLBT college students at Indiana University? Taylor (1968) suggests that information users often follow the most convenient path to locate the information they need. Because the Internet is available 24 hours a day and is often from a student’s own room, it is not surprising that many students would search there first for information. In his model of question pre-negotiation, Taylor also reports that users often consult colleagues for help before utilizing other sources (like libraries). Through email and web chat rooms, GLBT students can consult fellow students or other Internet acquaintances for information without having to step foot inside a library. Finally, Taylor also reports that users will perform their own search for information before consulting a librarian, possibly explaining a minority of survey respondents had requested library assistance (though this can also be explained by some respondents uncomfortableness in asking for help in finding GLBT-related information).

More recently, Taylor (1991) has written about information use environments (IUE), which look at the members of an IUE, the problems faced by those members in the IUE, settings in which information exists for these users, and methods of resolving the problems in the IUE. GLBT college students as a whole are a more diverse group of people (cutting across various cultural and discipline backgrounds) than other groups studied in the context of Taylor’s IUE, but helpful information can be derived by applying the concept. Problems encountered by GLBT people when searching for information are more evident in the three empirical studies review than in my own survey. They include a lack of information found, concerns about the quality of information found, and concerns about asking library staff for assistance in locating GLBT-related information. Hopefully the lack of complaints about presence or quality of GLBT-related information in my survey indicates that users are satisfied with the materials found in the Indiana University and local public libraries, the setting of the GLBT students IUE. The recommendations that can be made regarding this IUE are detailed in the following section.

The main area of concern I wanted to find recommendations for was the use of the campus GLBT Library. Regarding the comments of my survey participants, this can be aided by more advertising of its location and holdings. This has already been recently addressed by articles about the library in the local GLBT newspaper, The Bloomington Beacon, a display of materials in the Main Library, and the creation of a online catalog available through the GLBT Library web page (http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib). Furthermore, as suggested by a survey respondent, the listing of GLBT Library holdings in the main campus online catalog might increase its use as well.

Addressing survey respondents hesitancy towards asking library staff for assistance in locating GLBT-related materials is a more difficult problem to solve. Because many reference assistants in the Main Library are students in the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS), one possible solution would be increasing the amount of diversity education, specifically touching upon dealing with GLBT patrons, in the SLIS curriculum. This could help to make reference assistants more aware of behavior that may appear homophobic during requests for assistance locating GLBT material.

The results of the survey I conducted have only piqued my curiosity even more regarding GLBT students and their use of Internet as an information source. Due to the "youth" of the Internet, there is much research to be done yet on it’s use, especially in the GLBT community. Further ideas for research include:

Thanks for filling out this survey. It's for a paper on college students and their accessing of GLBT related material in libraries and on the web. All responses will remain confidential and information will be reported anonymously. -- Matt Kingston (makingst@indiana.edu)

Thanks! Please send this to OUT or to Matt Kingston at makingst@indiana.edu. Let me know if you'd like to see a copy of my paper when I'm done.

Creelman, Janet A. E. and Roma M. Harris. "Coming out: the information needs of lesbians." Collection Building 10.3-4 (1990): 37-41.

Friess, Steve. "A place where no one knows your name." Advocate 3 February 1998: 24-8.

Joyce, Steven L. and Alvin M. Schrader. "Hidden perceptions: Edmonton gay males and the Edmonton Public Library." Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science April 1997: 19-37.

Lutes, Michael A. and Michael S. Montgomery. "Out in the stacks: Opening Academic Library Collections to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students." Working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender college students: a handbook for faculty and administrators. Ed, Ronni L. Sanlo. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. 105-113.

Taraba, Suzy. "Collecting gay and lesbian material in an academic library." Gay and Lesbian Library Service. Eds, Cal Gough and Ellen Greenblatt. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, 1990.

Taylor, Robert S. "Information use environments." Progress in Communication 46.1 (1991): 217-255.

Taylor, Robert S. "Question-negotiation and information seeking in libraries." College & Research Libraries May 1968: 178-194.

Whitt, Alisa J. "The information needs of lesbians." Library and Information Science Research Summer 1993: 275-88.

Gough, Cal and Ellen Greenblatt. "Services to gay and lesbian patrons: Examining the myths." Library Journal 117.1 (1992): 59-61.

Gough, Cal and John M. Littlewood. What one librarian can do to improve services for lesbian and gay library users. Chicago: American Library Association Social Responsibilities Round Table Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 1991.

Fanning, Joseph P. "Viewpoint: Responding to Lesbian and Gay Questions." New Jersey Libraries Winter 1997: 16-7.

Mead, Valerie. "Are we being served? Lesbians and gays in the library." New Jersey Libraries Winter 1997: 4.

The Information Needs of GLBT College Students