RARA-AVIS: Libraries

From: MatCoward@aol.com
Date: 15 Jun 2001


<< No offense, but I think your library is in the minority. (Public, > right?) I've never seen a library that didn't break their collection > down by genre.

> ...while I've never been in one that does. And I've been in quite
> a few. >>

I've never seen a public library (here in Britain) that didnt have "Quick Choice" shelves for SF, crime, westerns (a rapidly dying readership), romance, and soemtimes other categories. But even twenty-odd years ago there were those in libraries who were opposed to this idea, on the grounds that it was snobbery: "here's that genre crap, here's the real books". (I even worked with one guy who thought that the Urdu books should be intershelved, so as to avoid ghetto-isation). But Quick Choice always survived for one simple reason
- almost all readers wanted books in certain categories, and wanted to be able to find them in a hurry, before their lunch break was up, or before their night shift began, or before the kids got home from school. High Falutin Theories Nil; Serving The Community One.
- Mat C
<A HREF=" http://hometown.aol.co.uk/matcoward/myhomepage/newsletter.html"> http://hometown.aol.co.uk/matcoward/myhomepage/newsletter.html>

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