You must visit in person to receive a library card. Please speak to the welcome desk receptionist to sign up for a card. We will request your contact information and in receiving your card you will be agreeing to comply with our policies, including notifying us if you have a change of address.

The Out Alliance Library & Archives has both circulating and non-circulating materials. Circulating materials include books (non-fiction, fiction, fiction anthologies, young adult and children’s books, poetry, autobiographies, biographies, and plays), DVDs, CDs. Non-circulating materials include rare books, magazines, special collections (digests, early homophile publications, erotic serials, newsprint, pulp fiction, and single issue erotic magazines), all of which can be used for research purposes on-site. If you are interested in viewing these non-circulating materials, please contact us to set up an appointment.

In order to check out materials you should present your library card to the welcome desk receptionist. All circulating materials have a circulation period of three weeks (21 days) and there is a limit of five (5) items allowed per patron.

To return checked out materials simply return them to the welcome desk receptionist during office hours.

Our circulation policy is as follows: The Out Alliance Library & Archives will loan circulating material for 3 weeks (21 days). Loans are limited to five items checked out at any time. If materials become delinquent, we reserve the right to contact you to return materials. If materials are borrowed beyond 10 weeks you will lose borrowing privileges. Those privileges will become immediately reinstated upon return of the overdue items. Much of our collection is adult-oriented; we reserve the right to limit or deny loan of materials based on age-appropriateness. For lost or damaged items, we request that you cover the cost of replacing those materials.

Our collection policy is as follows: The Out Alliance Library & Archives acquires LGBTQ+ books, children’s and teen’s books, rare books, manuscripts, archives, and media to serve the community. Collections are built with an emphasis placed on materials that relate to gender, sexuality, feminism, and LGBTQ+ culture. The Library & Archives welcomes the financial support of donors and gifts of appropriate materials; we reserve the right to refuse materials outside of the scope of the collection.

At this time we cannot accept new donations due to a backlog of materials, but we will make exceptions for rare and one-of-a-kind items as well as archival materials. Contact Library Director Gerry Szymanski at library@outalliance.org for more information.

Volunteers are always needed. Please contact library@outalliance.org to see what our current needs are.