If I had my druthers, paperbacks would all be in one area and you would find John Steinbeck shelved next to Danielle Steel. The minute you break books off into separate categories you do a disservice to library patrons.
Why? Because you keep them in their safe little worlds. They will resist trying anything new.
Why? Because it has a "label" on it.
Gasp, I can't read that! It has a romance, mystery, science fiction, horror, whatever label on it!
Yes, I know. Give people what they want. If they want X type of books, why make it hard for them? I understand that. I really, really do. I just think it's short-sighted. I think back to my teenage years and all the fabulous authors I discovered just by browsing the library shelves. If these folks had been put into their own categories, I probably never would have found Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Victoria Holt, Barbara Michaels....
The list goes on.
There's also the matter of mis-labeling. My library has labelled for years - which means it's so ingrained in our service population now that there is no turning back. Here are my two favorite mislabels that I've discovered so far:
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin marked with a "Horror" sticker. Now, I'm sure the men of earlier 20th century America did find Chopin's novel "horrifying" but that's besides the point.
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk labelled as science fiction. Um, no. In fact, Palahniuk's work tends to defy genres - so no label for him.
Yes, not labeling is certainly the way to go. Less headaches.
7 comments:
i, myself, do my very best not to label anything. but working for a huge system, things tend to come into the branch already labelled. i love how often things are miscataloged. my staff and i *adore* running around in the staffs relabeling. yeah right. and it's worse when it gets to children's and young adult materials. ugh.
In my small town library, we just have 'fiction', and there are three small carousels of mass-market paperbacks,which are mostly romance. In our three bookshops, we get 'fiction', 'thrillers/crime/mystery', 'sci-fi/fantasy', and 'literature'. So, to find romance, I have to browse all sections. Oh, the suffering this causes me... ;-)
Oh, I love labels! It's always fun trying to pigeonhole everything, even the impossible. :D
Hi Lilith! I had to mention you to Wendy one day because of the name of one of your librarians. And I want the third Watcher book yesterday.
Bless you Lilith! I love library patrons like you. Unfortunately for every adventurous soul there are about 10 patrons who refuse to even think about trying something new. I usually have to trick 'em into it ;)
Amber:
That's kind of where I'm leaning right now. Roberts in romance, Robb in mystery. I've just noticed that in my area that most of my Robb readers are romance readers. I've kept them in mystery though for fear of turning of Robb's male readership :-)
I saw put Robb in mystery since the romance readers will most likely know to look there (or search) and the mystery people will perhaps take a chance on romance once they read Robb, but wouldn't necessarily go to romance. I know my mother is an avid mystery reader, but loathes romance. I don't think she's ever read RObb though, she's more into Reichs, Jance, etc.
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