[Publib] What are Americans reading?

[Joe Schallan]

I think Nicholson Baker pointed out (in his New Yorker article taking us
to task for discarding our card catalogs) that the old catalog cards
contained a fascinating sort of metadata -- thumb smudges.

 From these, you could get a sense of which items were seeing a lot
of traffic.

This reminds me of a long-ago encounter with a patron
when I worked at the Glendale, Ariz., Public Library.  I observed a
fellow in the 629s, combing through the Chilton and Haynes
manuals, carefully taking notes.  A librarian on vacation in Arizona,
perhaps, unable to tear himself away from the temptation to see
how other libraries were doing things, while the rest of his party
was off viewing the Grand Canyon?

I found an excuse to engage him in conversation.  He was shopping
for a good used car.  He thought if he went to the public library
and noted which auto repair manuals had the fewest oil and
grease stains, those manuals would indicate what was a reliable
used car.  Smudges (or lack thereof) as data.  He was a bit crestfallen
when I told them that we actually *replaced* Haynes manuals that got
too grotty, so there was no guarantee that the relatively clean manual
in his hands indicated a make, model, and year that had had few
people working on it in their garages.

I did do a spot check, though, that confirmed his general idea,
by noting the condition of the Ford Escort manuals compared to
the Toyota Tercel ones.

It was an interesting concept, in any case, and proof that we will never
know every manner in which library patrons make use of our stuff.

(A blogger, The Jurassic Librarian, references Baker's article
and some follow-ups in his rant at

http://juralib.blogspot.com

I must confess that I know The Jurassic Librarian well and, indeed,
am very closely related to him.)

We librarians, along with bookstore clerks and managers, are
in what has to be the very best position to know precisely what
Americans are reading.  (I am crestfallen whenever I see that
our current copy of People Weekly is dog-eared and has
been handled to the point at which the front cover looks like
Fine Old Leather, by the second day on which it has been
put out for browsing, while nearby The Atlantic and The New
Yorker sit in their spots on the shelves in pristine splendor.)

Most of our integrated library systems can produce breakdowns
showing circulation by Dewey Decimal Classification, and
indeed we use these reports in our collection development
activities.

Why doesn't the ALA or LJ gather this sort of data from libraries
around the country and periodically publish a "What America
is Reading" report?  I'm thinking of something aimed at the
general news-reading public, not at librarians, something
that Yahoo News would pick up.  It would be fun to see, and
something that would heighten the visibility of libraries and
librarians, not to mention that of the organization that
issues the report.

Bestseller lists do this for newly released books, but it would
be interesting to see, for example, that in a particular quarter
self improvement (158) was up 10 percent, say, while
diet fads (613.25) were down.  (Not that I expect 613.25
to ever decline, at least not as long as the national fixation on
thinness persists.)

We wouldn't want to have the report structured using Dewey
numbers, of course, but it would be an interesting adjunct to
bestseller lists to see what America is reading, not by specific
title but by subject area.

"What America Is Reading" could become a regular cultural
indicator, something news hounds around the country
would look forward to seeing.  (Note how popular the
recently released rankings of dangerous cities have been.
Would anyone but us have heard of the Morgan Quinto
Press had they not come up with this PR-savvy regular
report?)

Joe Schallan
Phoenix

(Back to writing about library stuff after a huge wallow in
the "House" marathon on TV last Sunday)