Best-sellers in academic libraries

摘要

One of the mainstays of public libraries in the United States has been their provision of best-sellers to their customers. Because these works are a reflection of the time and culture in which they were produced, they also can be an importantresource for academic libraries. However, academic libraries generally do not collect such material, and if they do, they often discard it when its circulation slows or when it stops mirroring the practices of public libraries. This raises the question of whether this part of our cultural heritage is being lost. Are academic libraries keeping these materials for the use of scholars in the future? The goal of this research was to examine ownership of best-sellers within a group of academic libraries. LITERATURE REVIEW The ongoing debate within any library is the struggle over what should be kept and what should be thrown away. Many journals and books on collection development and weeding have tackled this issue, but a more specific question has been posed that takes this discussion to a more frenzied level. Best-sellers are a draw for libraries, especially public libraries. But when are best-sellers no longer needed? Should libraries become the storage center for popular culture? One approach to the problem was discussed in a recent interview with retired Baltimore County public librarians Charlie Robinson and Jean-Barry Molz. Their ideas are based on the philosophy that libraries should "give 'em what they want." This philosophy provides libraries with a customer-oriented approach to collection development that allows for more best-sellers and a quicker way to get rid of them when they no longer circulate. Robinson commented: "We made sure, under the direction of the trustees, that we had enough money for books so that we bought an awful lot of best-sellers. And the other thing we do is throw them away when they become slow movers.