A question of quality

This quality issue is really tough for me. For the past 13 years I have been purchasing the materials for my library’s juvenile and young adult sections. And I have to tell you it is hard to spend your limited dollars on materials that just sit on the shelf. Books that I think everyone should read because they are classics or are great sources of information or because they are on required reading lists often do not circulate. They sit on the shelf taking up room. Yes, they are great books. But no one looks at them. And the shelves become packed. Then, according to research, circulation drops because it becomes harder for patrons to find materials they want to read.

I guess it becomes a question of “What is a library?” My old Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines a library as “a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale.” Dictionary.com’s definition is similar “a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.”

Is a library a place to store the great achievements, “literary, artistic, or reference” of mankind? Are we a place to warehouse ideas? (From how many generations?) Or are we a living, growing enterprise that meets the current needs of our community? And what if, by meeting those current needs, we discard classic literature, good literature? (Is a classic just fiction? We routinely discard non-fiction titles when they become dated because man’s knowledge has advanced and the information in the books, once cutting edge, is no longer relevant. But those books do hold ideas of great men and women and are examples of what our society and others once believed.) How big a building do we need to house everything considered “great” or “important”? How do we fund it?

And for that matter what makes a book a classic? Is it because the people during the time it was written loved the book (Gone With the Wind) or were shocked and challenged by the book (Catcher in the Rye) or because someone wrote it long ago (Don Quixote and Romeo and Juliet) and people with PHDs in literature like to read and study the work?

What makes literary critics the arbitrator of what is “good” or “quality” literature? Is it because the literature they enjoy has merit because the writer used good grammar and literary devices such as similes, allegories, hyperbole, personification… ? Is it the fact that the critics have studied with others who “have stars upon thars” and learned what those “sneetches” consider to be the standards of great written works? Why is it the books that “sneetches without stars“ find interesting, such as genre literature, are not considered “good” or “quality.”

Pardon my questioning mind but I was a journalism/advertising major so my tastes in writing and literature have also been thought inferior by those with a classic English background.

This question of what a library is or should be will be tremendously important as we go forward. If we are to be museums or archives, we have a different role to play than if we are to be brokers of current information, technology and vital community centers.

In collection development class we learned that a library’s collection should reflect and meet its community’s needs. Who gets to decide if what the community needs is the same as what the community wants? We need to read works by classic authors such as Chaucer, Dickens and Thoreau to improve vocabulary, gain a historical perspective, expose ourselves to timeless ideas and obtain wisdom from other ages. But we want James Patterson, Harry Potter and Stephanie Meyer to entertain.

Is reading for enjoyment any less valuable than other reading?

I have a lot of questions and not many answers. I guess my philosophy would lean toward "give 'em what they want" to keep them reading and using the library and then, through displays, programs, book discussions and any other means possible, provide materials that allow the community to discover other “great” reads in addition to the current popular titles. It would help if all the “classic,” “good”, “quality” literature we need to make us better people, were available in an electronic format with free public access so we wouldn’t have to worry about it going out of print or taking up shelf space. Bet someone’s thought of that already...