The LGBTQ+ Representative Committee has relaunched their Lending Library after much anticipation within the community. The Lending Library, which has been a staple of the LGBTQ+ Lounge within the Students’ Union for several years, has recently been reformed and its content reviewed by members of the committee.
In a post shared on the committee’s social media earlier today, the representative body said: “Over the past few months, we’ve been busy going through all the items in our Lending Library, adding in content warnings so that our community can fully enjoy them! […] With over 75 titles in our collection, we’ve got something for everyone & representation of a wide variety of identities & lived experiences. But we always have room for more!”
The Lending Library contains both books, DVDs and even VHS material focusing primarily on LGBTQ+ content and creators, in order to provide queer students an accessible bank of content made by, and featuring, LGBTQ+ storylines and creatives. With a range of fictional works, history, real-life accounts and even literature curated by former University of Sheffield students, the Lending Library aims to educate, inform and entertain those looking for queer material to enjoy in their free time. The changes to the Lending Library include the addition of content warning pages into the media available to borrow, as well as reviews from those who have engaged with the content.
The committee hopes that community members will engage with the content on offer and help to fill in these gaps by reviewing the media they experience, which is currently being featured by Forge Press Arts & Theatre, in a bid to help drive writing and journalism by LGBTQ+ students, as well as increasing the exposure of the LGBTQ+ Committee, whose social media accounts were deleted at the end of 2023 following coordinated reporting incidents. The group have also asked for media requests and donations, in order to keep their library expanding and include underrepresented groups in its pages.
The reformed LGBTQ+ Lending Library is a unique offering by the LGBTQ+ committee to their constituent groups within the university, and with Pride Month currently taking place, it is hoped that more people will be engaging with queer media over the coming months with the Lending Library now fully operational once again.
The LGBTQ+ Lending Library is available to members of the University of Sheffield’s LGBTQ+ community, and can be found in the LGBTQ+ Lounge in the Students’ Union. Reviews for its content can be found here
