The Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System is a key sponsor of the Atlanta Queer Literature Festival, but its support is not a once-a-year endeavor.

The Ponce de Leon branch has the largest circulating collection of books by gay and lesbian writers in the city, according Cal Gough, assistant branch manager.

“Libraries try to mirror their communities,” Gough said. “Since there are a lot of same-sex households around here, we have been collecting for some time.”

Gough tries to secure —- through donation as well as purchases —- titles by the winners and nominees of the half-dozen book awards for gay and lesbian fiction and nonfiction. Gough hopes to complete an online title list (librarything.com) in time for the festival, which will hold a pre-festival open microphone session on Tuesday. The library’s 3,500 titles, shelved together at this branch, are available to any card-holder through the interlibrary loan system.

Richard Cruce, the system’s special collections manager, began building a noncirculating collection of books and archives in 2007. Intended as a research tool, it will include multiple editions of such authors as Walt Whitman and James Baldwin to show how editorial perspective has evolved through the years. Rare, fragile, first-edition and autographed books will be housed there.

Cruce wants the city to know he is building an archive of papers from local organizations. The Atlanta Gay Center, which was closing after 30 years, made the first donation —- six pickup trucks full —- in January 2007. Cruce plans to preserve AIDS service groups’ records as well.

The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History became the official repository for the papers of ZAMI, an African-American lesbian group, in August.

“We are in the process of courting several local organizations,” Kerrie Cotten Williams said. “We maintain archives of civil and human rights movements. Of course gay, lesbian and queer organizations and individuals would be a part of that.”