Canberra, 20 January 2020: Yesterday, Brisbane Square Library’s Drag Queen Storytime was disrupted by a group chanting bigoted slurs. The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) condemns such an intrusion of a library event and fully supports any libraries hosting Drag Queen Storytime.
ALIA President Robert Knight, OAM, has said ‘library collections, programs and services cater for all members of our communities, and their content is accordingly diverse. A number of libraries across Australia present Drag Queen Storytime as part of their commitment to inclusive programming, and it is completely unacceptable to see the disruption of activities in libraries on the basis of bigotry’.
Brisbane City Councillor, Vicki Howard has been quoted in news reports, including this article from The Brisbane Times, that Brisbane City Council ‘celebrates our different cultures, lifestyles, race or religions and includes everyone when it comes to staging events’ and said that ‘the actions of this small group of narrow-minded individuals is appalling’.
To show the widespread support for Drag Queen Storytime in libraries, ALIA is asking for libraries across Australia to send us photos of their Drag Queen Storytime events, which we will then post on our social media to showcase how libraries embrace inclusivity.
If you have an image for us to include in this campaign, please send it to [email protected] along with any necessary photographer attributions and let us know if you’d prefer not to have the library named. Images should not show the faces of any children present.