Materials should also be made available for people who are interested in lesbian life such as the parents, brothers and sisters of lesbian women, educators, colleagues, co-workers, etc. But I am sure that she would not have borrowed the book if she had had to ask for it or had feared the reaction of the library staff when requesting it. It has also been suggested that new lesbian-specific acquisitions to the library be announced in local or regional lesbian publications. Staff Lesbians often look for interesting media in the library on their own. Only few dare to ask for help from library staff.
Critical points are especially the areas of reference, circulation and inter-library loan.
From all this follows the need for libraries to adopt a liberal attitude towards lesbians and gays, and to train staff appropriately. It should be one further duty to stress discretion among the library staff and reinforce commitment to the rights to privacy of library users. There could be internal training, conducted, for instance, in cooperation with women's bookshops, AIDS organizations, associations of lesbians and gays to improve the understanding of homosexuality among library staff. She visited four public libraries in the area of Nordrhein-Westfalen and found there were few materials on lesbian and gay issues. This library contained a lot of new media in its collections, which was highly appreciated by the local gay and lesbian community.