[Publib] Sensitive question

[Gair Helfrich]

When I managed a branch we regularly "lost" (either stolen directly or
checked out and never returned) books by Donald Goines. He wrote what's
commonly called "street literature". I would repurchase the titles and
they would disappear again. Fortunately they were paperbacks and didn't
cost too much to replace. I eventually gave up and the manager who
followed me tried again. After replacing the titles 3 or 4 times, she
too gave up. 

 

I am a middle aged, white libarian who currently lives and until 9 years
ago worked in an inner city community. I spent a long time building up
the African American collection. Besides Goines we lost books by Jamaica
Kincaid, Terry McMillan, e.e. cummings, Nicki Giovani, J. California
Cooper, and other author whose name I can't remember. I repurchased just
about everything because patrons asked for it. It's not just African
American fiction that goes missing though.  I regularly repurchased
books about pregnancy, the occult, pit bills, Bruce Lee (I never could
figure out why there were stolen all the time), sports teams and
figures, etc., so why wouldn't I repurchase the African American
fiction?   Ultimately I gave up on Goines, pit bulls and Bruce Lee. I
think we're more aware of the African American fiction that turns up
lost or missing because it's such a small part of our collections and
we're more aware of it being missing. 

 

Hope this helps,

Gair

  

__________

Gair Helfrich, MLS

Supervising Librarian

Information & Technical Services Manager

Atlantic County Library

40 Farragut Avenue

Mays Landing, NJ 08330

609-625-2776 ext. 6327  Fax: 609-625-8143

ghelfrich at aclsys.org

 

 

 

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of lynlestblue at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 3:58 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Sensitive question

 

Dear Publibbers,

Is there a particular genre of fiction that you have to keep replacing?
If so, how often to your refresh this collection?

I don't want to mention the "C" word but if the entire African American
fiction collection is MIA each year, how can the collection development
librarian  justify buying the same set of books over and over again?
How can the librarian justify not replacing the collection?

Just so you know, I am an African American librarian (I have been for 9
years) who respects everyone's right to read freely. I am just troubled
when honest people want to read this genre of fiction and I have to tell
them that it's lost or missing.

What say you, publibbers?

--Reference librarian in a growing southern town

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