LGBT Book & Video Blog

Tucked into a small, windowless building in a Downtown alley is surely Indianapolis' least-known cultural attraction.

It's the equivalent of the local gay community's attic, a quirky, pint-sized Smithsonian containing four decades of odds and ends: long-defunct gay magazines, videotapes of long-ago drag shows, photo albums and books with gay themes -- gay westerns, gay science fiction, gay history, gay medical books, biographies of Roy Cohn, Rock Hudson, Noel Coward.

The Chris Gonzalez Library & Archives, named for a gay activist who died in the 1990s, was conceived 15 years ago but so far has generated little buzz. Recently, only 20 of its approximately 5,600 items were checked out.

The facility is open only on weekends because its one staffer, Michael Bohr, has a paying job during the week. He's an auditor with J.C. Penney.

But Bohr, who's also the library/archive's founder, is on a mission to raise the collection's profile. It's partly out of necessity -- for years the collection was housed rent-free in a section of a gay porn shop. But when the shop closed in September, the library/archive became a part of Indy Pride, a small, all-volunteer nonprofit.

Indy Pride, the group that puts on the local gay pride parade, which is today, sees potential in the Gonzalez library/archive and wants to exploit it. More of  Gay library wants to raise local profile
Indianapolis Star, United States -