Street Lit
My view of Street Lit is a strange one. I’ve never read any of the titles, but I’ve handled several as a member of the circulation staff at the library. I do not understand why, but for some reason the Street Lit books frequently look like they’ve been through a war. I do not know if they are made differently, but we consciously keep Street Lit titles in circulation which show quite a bit of wear. Otherwise, the books were being deleted for poor condition after very little use; then the books weren’t available.Additionally, one branch (not my own) had a large, separate collection of Street Lit – even though the books were cataloged as general fiction and had to be manually pulled out by eye for shelving. The same branch had several anti-theft policies specifically for Street Lit.
Setting those impressions as a clerk aside, how should I
look at Street Lit? Our library system does have Street Lit. There are a couple
of things that would help. First, pulling the Street Lit out of the fiction
would probably help. Currently, Street Lit is in the general fiction. That
would also include the romances, the majority of classics, literary fiction,
and Amish fiction. Separating the Street
Lit from Amish fiction would make sense in many ways.
Several titles are also included as e-books, and to the
extent that there is a difference in the physical books themselves, collecting
books in e-book format would tend to negate physical differences in a book. Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are an interesting case. The graphic novels discussed in the readings were curious in that only the manga titles mentioned were ones that I have seen circulate regularly. The “normal” (forward reading) adult and teen graphic novels that seem to circulate well at my branch are the Walking Dead and books related to comic book characters. Some of those comic book characters are older than I am, and the big name DC and Marvel characters are the main ones. There are a few of the comic strip-type comic books that circulate also. Garfield and Dilbert are examples of these.
Graphic novels seem to operate in a different sort of market
than most other books since several of the “classics” are also collectibles. The
other odd thing about graphic novels is that they seem to be poorly represented
in digital formats for libraries. I can think of several reasons for this, but
as titles become available, it would make sense to add e-book titles to the
collection. This would make sense from an archival perspective at the least. I
expect that digital versions of graphic novels will become increasing available
to libraries. Specifically, the Disney Digital collection of e-books makes me
think that some of the Marvel titles may be made available at some point
starting with kids’ books and working upward. I would hasten to add that graphic
novels and comic books (the magazine sort) in digital form would seem to work
nicely in Zinio. If the publishers and Zinio figure that out, that could open a
new type of item for libraries to collect. Currently, my system collects
graphic novels and manga but not magazine-type comic books. Many of the reasons
for collecting graphic novels over comic books would fall away in a digital
format. It will be interesting to see if digital comics or graphic novels work
their way into Overdrive or Zinio any time soon. So far there have been attempts,
but they seem half-hearted.
Young Adult Books
First, let me just say that some graphic novels are also young adult books. To the extent that they are, the following also applies to them.
Popular young adult books are not the sort of books that the
library needs to merely collect. These are the titles that the library needs to
use as an enticement to visit the library in the first place. This might
include give-away books as part of summer reading, inclusion of tie-in movie
DVDs and TV show boxed sets in the collection, and posters from the movies on
display. Divergent and Hunger Games have received quite a bit
of buzz because of movies. Why not take advantage of the free press?
Young Adult books are an interesting collection of books. I’ve
been trying to work out what puts a book into a particular section in my
branch. Sometimes the line between jFIC and TEEN is narrow, and similarly, the
line between TEEN and SF can be narrow as well. My sister and I chatted about
young adult books this morning over coffee. Her take was that young adult books
have broad appeal. They generally have little objectionable material – they tend
to be safer than adult books. They are books that parents might read with or to
their kids; moreover, they are also books that adults would enjoy by
themselves. She went on to mention that several of these get made into movies
and TV shows because they have broad appeal. She also talked about the Lord of
the Rings being thought of as a young adult book when it was published even
though it is shelved in the adult section (at my branch). It is unusual in that
it doesn’t have anything objectionable that would force it to be in the adult
section even if as a kid the black riders were scary. The prequel, The Hobbit, is shelved in both the jFIC
and SF sections. (It has separate entries.) Does that make this a timeless,
ageless story or does that just make it a silly kids’ book?Further Thoughts on Young Adult Literature
Be warned, my view of the library is from a teaching background and a technical background. My background is not a literature background at all.
The truly, truly odd thing about not collecting young adult
books is that it might be rather short sighted. Think of stories from your
childhood that
- Were read to you or given to you by a teacher or parent.
- Were enjoyed by the adult (first) and you (later).
- Were wildly popular.
- Have been made into movies or TV shows.
- Are still popular today.
That narrows things down to an interesting, weird, scary list. It is a list of stories that have become part of our culture because they were told to us and because we are re-telling them to our children. The Cat in the Hat, Ebenezer Scrooge, Santa Claus, Spiderman, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, George Washington and Mickey Mouse are part of our heritage. They are stories to which we can all allude with the characters we all know. They are part of how our brains think and form thoughts. These characters were used to teach us how to talk and how to think. These are the stuff of commercials and coffee break chats. These characters are from classic stories whether or not they are called such.
The popular young adult books that are read by kids and
adults are well on their way to becoming part of our culture. They are just
this side of a classic if two generations have already enjoyed them and if they
have transcended their original medium. Why would a library not collect them?
Would it be true to say most non-English majors read true “classics”
at or before their first year of college? This might be in middle school
reading class or on the bus to a high school game or as part of a class to
fulfill the English requirement of a B.S. degree. It might be from a reading
list, as part of a class or for fun. In any of those instances, the person doing
the reading is very likely a teen – 13 (middle school) through 19 (freshman
year at college). After all, how could a classic be used to pass on some part
of our culture and heritage without exposing kids and teens to it? One of the
weird requirements for a classic to be a useful classic is that it must be readable
by teens. Eliminating young adult literature from the library would essentially
eliminate the majority of the books that even have a chance of becoming a functional
classic.Put differently, while The Hunger Games may not ever be considered a classic, there is every reason to suspect that Katniss Everdeen will be teaching the English language to our grandchildren.
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