Nothing in the first post about the long tail. Nothing in the first post about the possibility the Sacramento administrators may be missing something.
Nothing in the first post about the possibility that it’s the number of copies of the Paris Hilton book (not video as I had it earlier) or Jackass 2 that some staff object to. Nothing much but righteous indignation about buzzkilling idiot Poindexters.

I doubt you have much to do with collection development there at Darien but I note that subject searches for Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera all return zero hits. Nothing by Donald Goines. Maybe your patrons turn to some sort of regional catalog for books by and about these people, or maybe your acquisitions people are so in tune with the community that they know there is just no interest … or maybe you should have a talk with them about building circulation - I notice there are six copies of “Fiasco” by Thomas Ricks just sittin’ on the shelf. Maybe someone there thought that’s what the public should be reading.

No “Learning Perl”, nothing about Ruby (Computer program language). Collection development is hard.

If they were on those lists, I assumed that people would want them and I didn’t want to make people have to request them. I had a lower set of standards for these items because they were likely to be popular. They were almost like automatic release items for me… I didn’t have to think much about them. I could (as you note) spend my time augmenting the collection in other ways.

Thanks for providing a forum for stimulating discussion John.

Larry, I think you miss the point that I’m trying to make which is that it’s not about specific titles but instead a process by which collections can be built objectively, without bias or prejudice. Perhaps if you consider my post in its entirety, you’ll see that I think it’s the job of the collection developers to make those collections unique by augmenting them with their own input. If you think about it, it takes the monotony out of the process and lets librarians focus on what they really want to do.

Searching the Darien Library catalog just now I didn’t find either title. How come?

In one public library where I worked, some of the patrons would have preferred that we not have any gay and lesbian material - unless it explained how disgusting this “choice” was and how evil such people were. They were quite vocal in challenging any material that deviated from this and they vigorously checked out their preferred materials.

I was not then (and am not now) interested in catering to bigots. If that makes me an intellectual elitist - so be it. So, these patrons did not get the material that they wanted because I would not waste money on it (and I use that phrase deliberately). Our board and my boss at the time backed me on this - against statistical and vocal evidence.

Did the GLBT items get checked out? Not much - it was too dangerous socially to be caught reading it. Does that mean that they weren’t used? Absolutely not! We collected in-house use stats as well as check-out stats and the GLBT items were off the charts for in-house use. Our board (and I) were pleased that we were meeting a previously unmet need - even if that was for a minority of the populace that didn’t feel that they could check the items out.

A long story and an extreme example - but you simple cannot judge everything via check-out statistics (how do you evaluate a reference collection?). The tyranny of the majority is no way to run a public library in my not so humble opinion.

Thanks Bo and John, for sharing your thoughts.

Found at: http://ofbooksandbikes.wordpress.com/

I think what I took issue with, more than anything, about your original post, was the comment that librarians shouldn’t be placing value on content. I think that placing value on content is the central task of librarians, especially those doing collection development. One good way of placing value on content is by paying attention to what people want. Popular materials, and materials with high demand, are likely to be quite valuable to library patrons, and I’m not suggesting that we should discount that. But popular demand is not the only way to measure value, and may not even be the best way. I don’t think it’s that cut and dry, and I think that determining value of materials is one of the most challenging jobs librarians have. I mentioned the Boston Public Library trustees and John Berry in my post because I think their writings are good examples of some serious attempts to wrestle with this difficult issue. More than anything, I want libraries to recognize that it is a difficult issue. Most of what I’ve seen written about this in the blogosphere hasn’t suggested that.