New DIY LGBTQ+ library a ‘form of resistance’

“I was actually going to set up a mobile queer library on a bike,” says Sè Malaika, founder of the soon-to-open Margate Queer Library and Archive. 

Sè bought a cargo bike two-and-a-half years ago and has been working on it while finishing a PhD in architectural history and theory, where they looked at lesbian activism as a form of place-making. Their wife Tara Li-an, a jeweller, however, took over a shopfront on Thanet Road to open jewellery studio Smith & Sun, and the couple decided to open the library in the premises’ basement instead.

“[The library] has been in conception for quite a long time, but it’s happened quite quickly in the last six weeks,” Sè says. “Our hearts are full, but we are very tired.”

While the PhD ended up pulling priority over kitting out the bike, through their studies, Sè accessed queer history and theory for the first time - the starting point for the library. 

“Other people come to queer history in other ways but it took me to get to that level of education to access it,” they say. “I always felt really frustrated that queer history was something quite impenetrable but actually, once I started reading it, I gained access to this whole understanding of my sense of being. 

“I really wanted to make some of those books, some of those texts, some of those histories more available in a way that felt more community grounded.” 

“I’ve been on the fringes of activism,” Sè continues, “but I’m also not a direct action [person]. But creating spaces like this, for me, is a form of resistance particularly in the climate we are in now, in the UK and globally. 

“Recording that we are here and also having spaces to record that we have been here… It just feels really important.”

Not yet finished and in between coats of paint when I looked around, the library is a brightly coloured space that already has two large plush armchairs in place. Piles of books are stacked in what will become the archive, soon to be filed on semi-constructed shelving. When it opens on Saturday, June 14, the library, while set up and ready to go, will still be somewhat a work-in-progress, ready to be moulded further by those who use it. 

“The space will open as something imperfect but organic and growing,” Sè says. “And I want it to be something people can feed into how it looks.”

The plans for the space are big; a reading garden out the back, a creative studio up the stairs, a shelf for locally made and independently published zines, and reading windows for people who are unable to navigate the basement stairs. There are also hopes for reading groups, discussions and initiatives for people looking to access the library and archive to research points of interest for art, studies and the like. 

“I’m really excited about seeing someone sitting in those big chairs with a book,” Sè says. “We’re going to have coffee and the invitation is to come and linger. That would be something I would really love.” 

“I’m excited for the conversations that might happen between other people; the conversations I will have; the ideas people might have from interacting with the stories and themes of books, and also with what is being presented as an ‘archive’.”

Not yet open, the library has 35 members and counting, which Sè says is “so exciting”. All books - 201 at the time of our interview - have been donated, including 25 books from Herne Bay Library which got in touch over Instagram. 

“I haven’t bought a single book. That’s mad to me,” says Sè who adds that each donated book “means the world”.

Sè’s old academic texts are in the collection, as well as donations of young adult literature, art books and novels like Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and Rosa Rankin-Gee’s Dreamland. 

People who sign up for membership are asked what sort of books they want to read too. “There’s been requests for kids books, comics and for books around queerness and psychotherapy, and neurodivergence and disability and the environment,” Sè says. 

Queerness and the global majority, indigenous knowledge, ecologies and nature, as well as graphic novels are also on the wanted list. Unexpectedly, LGBTQ+ thrillers are also in demand. “I was like, this is a whole genre I don’t read, necessarily," Sè says, excited and amazed. “People really want queer thrillers.”

While Sè hopes the community will shape the library’s direction, they hope the archive will become a co-production, filled with transcripts, documents, artifacts and things from the local LGBTQ+ community, and which is “performative, porous and playful”. 

“It’s the idea that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure,” Sè says, recalling the time they were able to order up a giant paper mache penis at the Bishopsgate Institute on Liverpool Street. “I didn’t need to see it, but I wanted to see it.”

The archive is “definitely local” says Sè, who would like to see it extend beyond Margate and into wider Thanet, as the community helps to build the collection.

“The archive needs a lot more conversation with the community. There’s the thing of who makes the choice of what goes into it. That’s not a position I want to be in, I want it to be co-produced and community-led.

“I really don’t want to be speaking on behalf of and on entire communities,” they continue. “We are a very diverse group of people.”

Like the library, items in the archive will be donated, and have already started to trickle in. “We got a donation of a shell with a collage of Shelly Grotto in it. It’s my most favourite thing. 

“We’ve got quite a few banners coming through too, one of which is ‘cats for trans rights’. As a dog person, I’m a fan.” 

There are various projects Sè would like to include in the archive, including one looking at Margate’s past LGBTQ+ spaces. But the archive just doesn't aim to just document the community’s history. 

“Queerness has always existed. Organically, there is a lot happening right now, and Margate is a place that has a lot of people doing incredible stuff. 

“An archive doesn’t just represent things of the past. It can be an alive thing, about what’s happening right now.”

Right now, for Sè, is the last mad stretch before opening - one last lick of paint, sorting books, assembling shelves and all the running around and faffing about that goes into setting something up when you're running on empty.

They tell me how they recently collected a bag of books from drop off point Sunshine Tattoos on Northdown Road when they were having a day. 

“A person had put a note inside the bag and I’ve been carrying the note for a couple of days now because it was one of those days where I was like, ‘I’m so tired, what are we doing?’ and somebody had written this very simple note that just said, ‘this is going to be a wonderful resource for Margate’.

“And I was like, thank you. I really needed to hear that.”

Margate Queer Library and Archive opens on Saturday, June 14 at 7 Thanet Road, CT9 1UA, 11am-3pm.  Library hours are currently Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 11am-4pm. Membership is free, and the library is still accepting donations.