>Who (I'm barely refraining from saying "who was the
idiot") decided that
>books would stay in a library based on number of
readers?
TO:
An influential library directory named Charlie Robinson
(Baltimore PL, if I
remember correctly) said "Give the people what they want!"
And he did.
Unfortunately, "the people" are the *majority*... who want
Stephen King,
Danielle Steel, Clancy, etc. This philosophy is commonplace
in public
library systems now. Mine included.
De Toqueville remarked that nothing of artistic genius would
ever come from
the United States because the force of democracy elevates the
mediocre. He
was wrong-- it isn't democracy, it's the marketplace, and
genius is not
prevented, but it does encounter considerable resistance if
it doesn't sell.
My library has a capacity of 100,000 volumes. We own 140,000.
I recently
saved one copy of "Wild Wives" and threw out several crates
of books by
authors I'd never heard of.
Tomorrow I'll read on this list the name of an author of a
book I just
tossed because it had circulated once in two years-- and hope
the trash
hasn't left yet.
Well, the peeples don't want it-- one person's review of
*Dora Suarez* on
Amazon made me laugh-- but if a book makes the reviewer ill,
well, the
average library won't buy it. And if when bought it doesn't
circulate, it
will meet the business end of a garbage truck.
Funny how people in so many of these stories are disposable,
but we get
sentimental when the books are buried.
I feel your pain.
Tom Olson,
( sensitive librarian.)
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