Why Your Academic Library Needs a Popular Reading Collection Now More Than Ever

Abstract

Do popular reading materials belong in college and university libraries?Although some librarians think not, others believe there are compelling reasons for including them. The trend towards user-focused libraries, the importance of attracting patrons to libraries in the age of the Internet, and, most importantly, the need to promote literacy at a time when it has reached its lowest levels are all reasons why academic librarians are reconsidering their ideas about popular reading materials. Librarians who decide to implement a leisure reading collection should consider a number of key issues.KEYWORDS: popular reading collection; literacy; academic libraries; leisure reading; popular fiction; recreational readingIn 2009 our academic library explored the idea of introducing a popular reading collection. There were certainly enough reasons against doing so: budgetary and spatial constraints; a perceived collection policy conflict; and a lack of certainty about our role in this matter. Should we be buying books that are traditionally associated with public libraries? Despite the uncertainty we decided that it was important to pursue the matter.Why? We believe that it is our job to understand and meet our patrons' needs in order to effectively serve them.At our library, students frequently asked for popular reading material, especially at the beginning and end of term. They want to browse the shelves in order to find a good book to read. Up until now, we have directed them to genre subject headings in the 2 catalogue or the literature call-range areas in the library but these methods have had limited success. LC is not an effective classification scheme for browsing fiction. We have also directed students to our local public library. Many of our patrons do not understand why a library includes some books and not others, and most of them are surprised that we do not own more leisure reading materials. Researchers point out that students do what is handy and if reading material is not conveniently located on campus, they frequently choose another activity instead (Christensen 1984;Elliott 2007). All too often we felt as if we were disappointing our users, and that they were not getting the book they were looking for. We started to consider creating our own popular reading collection. Past and Present TrendsThe idea of creating a leisure reading collection in a university library is not new.In the 1920s and 1930s, academic libraries actively promoted the recreational reading interests of students by creating browsing collections of popular literature (Rathe and Blankenship 2005, 76; Zauha 1993, 57). In fact during this period, college librarians considered the promotion of reading to be paramount according to Farber (Zauha, 57) Trend towards User-focused LibrariesAdapting to the needs of the contemporary user is one of the biggest challenges -Students will increasingly view themselves as customers and consumers, expecting high-quality facilities and services‖ so the academic library must be -a strong advocat...

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