Oak Park is home to a library for everyone. Connect, learn, and grow with resources, services, and programs from your public library.
What’s new
Find the latest book lists, on-demand videos and tutorials, at-home activities, interactive programming, and more below!
Meet Hal, Oak Park’s Rainbow Services Librarian
Hal is a children’s librarian who specializes in serving LGBTQ+ young people and their allies. He is passionate about identity exploration through collaborative storytelling and imaginative play. Hal also collaborates with Collection Management librarians curating materials for all ages, including the library’s Transgender Resource Collection.
Collection suggestions
Explore librarian-curated titles, book lists, and a kit to check out and take with you below.
Books for caregivers, titles for kids
Borrow a kit "designed to empower children to share their ideas & feelings with grown-ups & peers"
Designed for caregivers to share with early learners and grade schoolers, social-emotional learning kits are a unique, one-of-a-kind resource combining books, open-ended questions, and more based on a theme.
Online resources
Below find resources from around the web and subscription-based resources available with your Oak Park library card and PIN.
Digital resources from around the web
LGBTQ+ support resources
- America in Transition Documentary Series: A four-part series hosted on the Revry.tv.
- Illinois Safe Schools Alliance: Promoting safety, support, and healthy development for LGBTQ youth, in Illinois schools and communities.
- interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth: Advocating for the human rights of children born with differences in their genitals, chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive anatomy.
- The List for Us: Chicago-area-based resources specifically for trans people of all ages; website available in English and Spanish.
- The Name Change Mobilization: A resource to help people legally change their names.
- National Parks Service LGBTQ History Theme Study: A series of articles about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history.
- minus18 youtube channel: A charity improving the lives of LGBTQIA+ youth through events, workshops, and peer support.
- them. youtube channel: A community that celebrates the stories, people, and voices that have previously been overlooked.
Gender identity resources
- The Gender Unicorn: This free tool is great for facilitating creative conversations about gender.
- Gender Wheel Coloring Pages: These downloadable coloring pages accompany books by Maya Christina Gonzalez like They, She, He, Easy as ABC.
- Gender Wheel Videos: This collection of videos includes a short story about pronouns, readings by Maya Christina Gonzalez, and a series of lessons that pairs with They, She, He, Easy as ABC.
- Pronouns: This app is a fun tool for learning how to use a variety of pronouns.
- Queer Kid Stuff: This affirming web series includes videos for all ages about LGBTQ+ identities and social justice.
Subscription-based resources available with your Oak Park library card & PIN
- Gale in Context: Biography: Explore authoritative biographical entries covering international figures from all time periods and areas of study, including a collection of biographies on notable LGBTQIA+ figures. To start your search, choose Browse People and then select LGBTQIA+ Figures from the dropdown.
- LGBTQ+ Source: Scholarly and popular LGBTQ+ publications in full text, plus historically important primary sources—including monographs, magazines, newspapers, and videos.
- Novelist K-8 Plus: Find fiction and nonfiction book lists for children, award-winning titles, and books by grade level or Lexile score. Use the Advanced Search option to find titles by LGBTQ+ authors (by selecting LGBTQIA under Authors Cultural Identity).
