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January 02, 2007

So Long Hemingway?

Charlie Barthold sent me this story in the Washington Post today, about the Fairfax County (VA.) Public Library. Fairfax library branches are out of room and are discarding aggressively. Their criteria? Any book that has not circulated in two years, even classics like Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, will be considered for discarding. Space is at a premium and a book that does not earn its place on the shelf loses it.

Charlie thought that I could relate to the article, and I certainly did. We, too, are in a space crunch and now must discard a book for every one that we add. And we too, find books on the shelf that have not found their reader. In reviewing a list of books that had not circulated last year, we found many that certainly merited their glowing reviews, but had not been borrowed. We are now giving those titles a second chance in a special "Be Our First Reader" display.

It has always been a theory of mine that one of the reasons that classics don't circulate is because the library copies are in poor condition. Shiny new best sellers look more attractive on the shelves. Years ago, we spotlighted new copies of classic works of literature in a special display and they did circulate. We will be purchasing more new copies for the new library and are building a special room with attractive displays for the literature collection. The new library will give us the space to make all the core collections of the library as attractive to our readers as the new releases, so that even For Whom the Bell Tolls will find its reader.


Posted by louise at January 2, 2007 04:26 PM

Comments

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What a marvelous idea!

Posted by: Michelle (Jane) at February 1, 2007 08:35 PM

Oh, I love that idea! I am going to make up a display like that tomorrow.

Posted by: jessica [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 22, 2007 11:45 AM

Hemingway is one tough question to answer, as is that of any deceased author, when it comes to deciding to keep or not keep their books in the library for space reasons. And I have no idea how to handle those choices.

But with living authors, it seems to me, there are some guidelines that could be established that would be (in part at least) fair and rewarding. The American Academy of Arts and Letters is divided into three divisions: Literature, Art and Music. For Literature, there are only 100 members and part of the criteria for entry is that the writer must be living. Further criteria are listed below as well as the names of the current members and the year they were elected. (A quick look reveals that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Kurt Vonnegut will be replaced at the next academy's election.)

It would be a wonderful thing to know -- a well-founded token of respect -- that no library would discard the books of any of the writers on this list during their lifetime.

"Membership to the Academy is by election. Nominations made by members are first submitted for vote to the appropriate department of Art, Literature, or Music. Candidates for membership who receive the highest number of votes in their own departments are then voted on by the entire membership. The honor of election is considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in this country."

Aaron, Daniel 1997
Abrams, M.H. 2001
Adler, Renata 1987
Albee, Edward 1966
Allende, Isabel 2004
Ashbery, John 1980
Auchincloss, Louis 1965
Auster, Paul 2006
Baker, Russell 1984
Banks, Russell 1998
Baraka, Amiri 2001
Barth, John 1974
Barzun, Jacques 1952
Beattie, Ann 1992
Bentley, Eric 1990
Bidart, Frank 2006
Bloom, Harold 1990
Bly, Robert 1987
Brustein, Robert 1999
Calisher, Hortense 1977
Connell, Evan S. 1988
Coover, Robert 1987
DeLillo, Don 1989
Didion, Joan 1981
Dillard, Annie 1999
Doctorow, E. L. 1984
Erdrich, Louise 1998
Fagles, Robert 1998
Feiffer, Jules 1995
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence 2003
Foote, Horton 1998
Ford, Richard 1998
Fox, Paula 2004
Gaines, Ernest J. 1998
Gass, William H. 1983
Gates, Jr., Henry Louis 1999
Gay, Peter 1989
Gluck, Louise 1996
Gray, Francine du Plessix 1992
Guare, John 1989
Gurney, A. R. 2006
Hall, Donald 1989
Hardwick, Elizabeth 1977
Hass, Robert 2002
Hazzard, Shirley 1982
Hoagland, Edward 1982
Hollander, John 1979
Howard, Richard 1983
Huxtable, Ada Louise 1977
Irving, John 2001
Johnson, Diane 1999
Kaplan, Justin 1985
Keene, Donald 1986
Keillor, Garrison 2001
Kennedy, William 1993
Kincaid, Jamaica 2004
Kinnell, Galway 1980
Kushner, Tony 2005
Levine, Philip 1997
Linney, Romulus 2002
Lurie, Alison 1989
Mailer, Norman 1967
Malcolm, Janet 2001
Mamet, David 1994
Matthiessen, Peter 1974
McClatchy, J. D. 1999
McCullough, David 2006
McPhee, John 1988
Meredith, William 1968
Merwin, W. S. 1972
Moore, Lorrie 2006
Morrison, Toni 1981
Murray, Albert 1997
Oates, Joyce Carol 1978
Ozick, Cynthia 1988
Paley, Grace 1980
Pinsky, Robert 1999
Poirier, Richard 1999
Price, Reynolds 1988
Roth, Philip 1970
Russell, John 1996
Sacks, Oliver 1996
Salter, James 2000
Schlesinger, Arthur jr. 1961
Shawn, Wallace 2006
Shepard, Sam 1986
Simic, Charles 1995
Smiley, Jane 2001
Smith, William Jay 1975
Snodgrass, W. D. 1972
Snyder, Gary 1987
Spencer, Elizabeth 1985
Stone, Robert 1994
Strand, Mark 1981
Tate, James 2004
Terkel, Studs 1997
Theroux, Paul 1984
Tyler, Anne 1983
Updike, John 1964
Vendler, Helen Hennessy 1993
Vidal, Gore 1999
Vonnegut, Kurt 1973
Warren, Rosanna 2005
Weaver, William 1992
White, Edmund 1996
Wiesel, Elie 1996
Wilbur, Richard 1957
Williams, C.K. 2003
Wills, Garry 1995
Wilson, Lanford 2004
Wolfe, Tom 1999
Wright, Charles 1995

Posted by: Leo Vanderpot at April 23, 2007 06:59 PM

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