FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – One of the country’s largest independent library collections of GLBT books opened in a new location in a city building April 23 as civic leaders and gay activists cut a red ribbon to the 4,500-square-foot space.

Organizers said the building, with easy access to busy U.S. Highway 1, gives the collection new prominence and availability for gay and straight communities alike. The 36-year-old Stonewall Library and Archives collection – home to some 18,000 gay-themed books and other materials – effectively doubled its library space and research archives, said Stonewall executive director Jack Rutland.

Ellwood Autori, a Pompano Beach retiree who attended the event, said the new home will boost community involvement.

“For the same reasons we have whole libraries for the Holocaust, of black history, for every group in the world, we have to have this information,” said Autori, wearing a pink polo shirt.

Steave Yeagley, an area resident who has long held a $30 annual membership, lauded the expansion. Yeagley and his partner, Tim Ewert, said Stonewall is a visible show of support for preserving gay history.

Elected officials, including openly gay Broward County Vice Mayor Ken Keechl, gathered to support the nonprofit organization and to proclaim a Stonewall appreciation day. A red ribbon tying the doors was cut to the collection.

City and county commissioners approved the move amid controversy in 2007. The Ft. Lauderdale mayor at that time, then leading an anti-gay campaign, scoffed at housing the collection in a city building. But his vote against the relocation was in the minority and the move was approved.

Stonewall takes its name from the 1969 riots for gay rights in New York. Florida Atlantic University students began the collection in 1973 and housed it in a student’s home, then a church.

Rutland said the collection will be an educational and practical resource.

He noted that once an uncle of a gay teenager called seeking help handling the announcement of his sexuality. Rutland picked out some books for him.

“As a gay man who’s been out a very, very long time, I can’t imagine how different my life would be if I had this place to come to,” Rutland said. “It certainly wasn’t around when I was a kid.”

Foreign, independent films and books, both popular and out of print, sit stacked in the space – in a building shared by other county libraries.

Rutland said the bigger space will allow for literary events and monthly meetings after being relocated from a gay community center that last held the collection.

A two-year campaign calling for donations raised $500,000 for renovations.

Stonewall board president Chuck Williams said the collection’s new home, leased by Broward County, shows progress in the gay-rights movement. But he noted there are still hate crimes and social stigmas to fight. Broward County is considered the most diverse of Florida counties, officials say, despite the highest number of reported hated crimes.

Stonewall, he said, is free of judgment.

“It’s hard to believe in my lifetime that gays were dug into dark corners and beaten to a pulp at the university I went to,” Williams said, “and yet here I am today.”