{"id":373057,"date":"2026-06-24T14:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/373057\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T14:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:34:13","slug":"sacramentos-lavender-library-provides-a-home-for-queer-history-and-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/373057\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento\u2019s Lavender Library Provides a Home for Queer History and Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Walking past the Lavender Library on 21st Street, you could
\n easily mistake it for one of Sacramento\u2019s many bookstores. But as
\n soon as you walk inside it becomes apparent that what you\u2019re
\n actually seeing is a treasure trove of the city\u2019s local LGBTQ+
\n history.\n<\/p>\n

\n Originally opened in 1997, the Lavender Library Archive and
\n Cultural Exchange, or LLACE, has spent the nearly three decades
\n building an archive of local LGBTQ+ media. Clint Vigen, one of
\n the original founders of the library, said the decision to open
\n LLACE was primarily due to the seemingly imminent closure of the
\n Lambda Center, not the LGBT Community Center, that same year.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAt that time the Lambda Community Center was on rapid decline
\n and was about to go out,\u201d says Vigen. \u201cThey rented out three
\n spaces in the Jackson Building, which is now Big Brother Comics,
\n and they were eventually brought down to three rooms in that
\n building, and they couldn\u2019t rent all three rooms.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n One of those rooms was the Jane Roundtree Library, and the
\n community center made the decision to throw away the collection
\n there. Vigen said that Michael Bennet, the librarian of the
\n space, alerted Gail Lang of The Open Book about the disposal.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cGail rounded up everybody that she could that would pay
\n attention and listen to what was happening,\u201d Vigen remembers. \u201cWe
\n took back that Jane Roundtree library, and we moved it
\n temporarily into Gail\u2019s basement.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The library would find a home at the B Street Theater, then still
\n on B Street, for two years before moving to its current location
\n on 21st Street in 2000. Nancy McKernan, who has served on the
\n board since 2012, did the painting for the new location and says
\n she\u2019s amazed by how much it\u2019s grown.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Clint Vigen, Kerry Parsons, Michelle Trujillo, Nancy McKernan and
\n Rayna Sheftman stand at the opening counter at the Lavender
\n Library on 1414 21st Street. (Photo by Jacob Peterson)\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe library was just a three-shelf A-frame in the very
\n beginning,\u201d McKernan said.\u201cThere were mostly VHS tapes; we didn\u2019t
\n have DVDs and stuff like that back then.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n That small collection has expanded quite a bit in the following
\n years. Kerry Parsons, the director of the archives and
\n collections department, says there is a wide variety of different
\n media available to the public there, including a variety of
\n serialized material.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe focus on local magazines and publications, and we also have
\n some national publications on our shelves and DVDs people can
\n check out,\u201d Parsons says.\n<\/p>\n

\n While much of the material in the library is available to check
\n out, there are items in the archive that can only be used for
\n reference material. Michelle Trukillo, the lead archivist, says
\n many of these reference materials are works that would be
\n difficult or impossible to replace if they went missing.\n<\/p>\n

\n This distinction is \u201cone of the big differences between library
\n and archives,\u201d Trujillo says. Archives \u201cdeal primarily with
\n unpublished material, unique materials and photographs that are
\n on site, and people can\u2019t check them out to take home.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The library is in the process of digitizing its collection,
\n working with the group California Revealed, a state-funded
\n initiative, to convert much of the material there into a digital
\n library. Parsons says this digitization allows more people to use
\n LLACE\u2019s archives for \u201cserious research.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere are people doing more articles on LGBTQ+ history that are
\n interested in coming in to do research on things,\u201d Parsons says.\n<\/p>\n

\n One of the challenges of digitization is cost. Previously,
\n California Revealed offered the services for free, but Trujillo
\n says federal cuts caused them to need to charge.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is the first year we\u2019ll have to be paying for the
\n digitization, because we want to keep going and we want to
\n support California Revealed,\u201d Trujillo says. \u201cThat\u2019s a real
\n tangible effect of what\u2019s happening at the federal level and how
\n it\u2019s affecting us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The library is also working on cataloging its own history. Those
\n duties fall on Rayna Sheftman, a volunteer historian. A
\n Sacramento State student, Sheftman\u2019s task is to go through the
\n library\u2019s documents and put that history together into an
\n accessible format.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Volunteers for the Lavender Library table at the Sacramento Pride
\n Festival, giving out information to people interested in visiting
\n and supporting the library. Trujillo and Parsons estimated the
\n library had 80 to 90 volunteers, the highest number in its
\n history. (Photo by Jacob Peterson)\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have an accessible, documented version of our own
\n history as an organization,\u201d Sheftman says. \u201cSo my role has been
\n going through internal documents, newspaper articles \u2014 anything I
\n can find, basically \u2014 to document that history.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Sheftman\u2019s work fulfills one of the many roles needed to keep the
\n library running. They note that in addition to archival work,
\n volunteers help with day-to-day operations and outreach,
\n including tabling at Sacramento Pride.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe have a huge volunteer base that keeps the doors open at the
\n library and keeps it a community space,\u201d Parsons says.\n<\/p>\n

\n Community support and donations are also a key part in keeping
\n the library running. While LLACE does apply for grants, Parsons
\n says the majority of financial and material support comes from
\n individual donations.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have any government funding; it\u2019s just the public
\n donating funds and material,\u201d Parsons says. \u201cIt is tough in the
\n current economic climate, but the LGBTQ+ community has been
\n amazing. They give support when they can.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Parsons says that, in her view, the local queer community offers
\n strong support even when their own financial situations are not
\n secure. Trujillo says this appears to have been the case
\n historically as well.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThat speaks to historically marginalized communities being
\n responsive and sensitive to those changes and knowing those
\n challenges will be there,\u201d Trujillo says. \u201cThere\u2019s such a deep
\n sense of belief and care in our space here, and that comes
\n through in the time that our volunteers spend here and the
\n projects that we do.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n On top of archival work, the library also acts as an important
\n space for the local queer population. Trujillo and Parsons both
\n found the library because they were looking for a community.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cHaving a safe space for people to go and be amongst other
\n people, their peers, their elders, is incredibly important,\u201d
\n Parsons says. \u201cThere are members of the community who don\u2019t want
\n to go to bars and have a place like the Lavender Library where
\n they can hang out and be with other people.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Trujillo says that it is also important for the library to be a
\n free resource, as it allows people to participate in social
\n events no matter what their economic situation is.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cPeople can come and be who they are here, but there\u2019s also a
\n sense of a shared something,\u201d Trujillo says. \u201cEveryone doesn\u2019t
\n have the same experience, but we have the same sense of mutual
\n affirmation of others dignity no matter how you show up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u2013\n<\/p>\n

\n Never miss a story: Get Comstock\u2019s weekly newsletter<\/a> delivered to your
\n inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walking past the Lavender Library on 21st Street, you could easily mistake it for one of Sacramento\u2019s many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-373057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}