Research Article: “Don’t Call It a Comeback: Popular Reading Collections in Academic Libraries”
The following article is published in the latest issue (Vol. 58, No. 1) of Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ).
Title
Don’t Call It a Comeback: Popular Reading Collections in Academic Libraries
Authors
Elizabeth Brookbank
Western Oregon University
Anne-Marie Davis
University of Washington
Lydia Harlan
University of Oregon
Source
Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ)
Vol. 58, No. 1 (2018)
DOI: 10.5860/rusq.58.1.6839
Abstract
Despite the persisting notion that recreational reading does not have a place in the academic mission of college and university libraries, these libraries have a long history of providing pleasure reading for their patrons. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the idea of academic libraries meeting the recreational reading needs of students seems to have fallen out of favor, but a literature review of that time period shows that the collections themselves still existed. Discussion of—and justifications for—these collections, however, has enjoyed a resurgence in the library literature over the past decade. Given this renewed interest, this study seeks to assess just how common these collections are in US academic libraries today, and whether or not they are, in fact, enjoying a comeback from previous decades. This study surveyed the thirty-nine academic libraries that make up the Orbis Cascade Alliance in the Pacific Northwest, a diverse group of libraries in terms of size, type, budget, and student populations. The results of the survey show that a majority of libraries have a recreational collection and that these collections are valued by patrons and librarians alike. Recommendations are made for shifting the perspective on popular reading collections and their place in academic libraries, as well as for how to study them in the future.
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Filed under: Academic Libraries, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.