Library and Information Science Commons^™

This study examines the voluntary reading practices of self-identified lesbian, bisexual and queer young women between the ages of 18 and 23 years. The practices associated with voluntary reading including finding, borrowing, buying, reading, sharing and talking about texts, especially those that fall into the genre of lesbian and gay literature, comprise the central theme of this study. Data collection and analysis were guided by principles of qualitative, 

interpretivist inquiry. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with seventeen young women in London and Toronto, Ontario. Three main themes related to reading emerged from analysis of interview transcripts. The first of …