Readers Advisory-Special Topics Paper

Crossing Habitual Genre Boundaries: Why do Patrons Ignore Genre Classifications When Browsing New Book Displays?

Ask any librarian, they will tell you that library patrons naturally gravitate to shelves containing new books. Furthermore, patrons will often cross the boundaries of their normal genre preferences when the books are on the new bookshelf. However, why? What about this passive reader’s advisory technique gets adult readers to cross into and read genres that they would not otherwise read if the book was integrated into the library’s general collections? 

A number of academics have attempted to answer this question, and the opinions range widely. Listed below are some of the most popular and widely accepted causes for this trend. 

"An increasing numbers of authors are crossing genres from book to book and publishing titles that encompass multiple genres in a single work” (Trott 33). If a patron is perusing the new book shelf and recognizes an author that they have read in the past and have enjoyed, they will most likely not be deterred by the genre classification that the author is listed under. Furthermore, the same principle is true for authors that the patron is not familiar with. If they identify story-lines or themes in a book that they are interested in, they will pick up and likely check out the book. Building off of this line of theory, Maker maintains that the success of book displays lies in the fact that they are minimally categorized and possess minimal signage in most public libraries. He believes that the excess of signage overloads the human’s capability of processing, and essentially causes the brain to switch off. With new book displays, the patron’s eyes are allowed to wander across a variety of genres without being hindered by considering that they are crossing a genre boundary. 

Contrary to the opinion that holds signage and marketing techniques as a deciding factor in a reader’s genre choices, Summers proposes that adult reading habits and preferences, and the cross-over in genres with new book displays, are directly related to gender differences. Essentially, the cross-over occurring within genres are driven by a male of female patron showing their preference for the gender of the protagonist, regardless of genre.

A final theory, Brown claims that cross promoting genres within the same new book displays causes patrons to actively choose to venture into new reading experiences.  Rippel takes it a step further, in that he contends if older books were displayed as new books, or at the very least displayed in a similar fashion, that the same crossing of genre boundaries would occur, and the older, existing collections of books would circulate at a higher rate. 

Other theories exist, but listed above are ones that I commonly came across and that were repeated by multiple scholars. 

Brown, Susan. “Twenty Rules for Better Book Displays.” Novelist, EBSCO, 2016, www.ebscohost.com/novelist/novelist-special/twenty-rules-for-better-book-displays.

Maker, Richard. “Reader-Centered approach to the classification of adult fiction in public libraries.” The Australian Library Journal, vol. 57, no. 2, 2008, pp. 169–177.

Rippel, Chris. “What Libraries Can Learn from Bookstores.” WebJunction, 21 Mar. 2012, www.webjunction.org/documents/webjunction/What_Libraries_Can_Learn_from_Bookstores.html

Summers, Kate. "Adult Reading Habits and Preferences in Relation to Gender Differences." Reference and User Services Quarterly, no. 3, 2013, p. 243. EBSCOhost, www.ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.refuseserq.52.3.243&site=eds-live. 

Trott, Barry, and Vicki Novak. “A House Divided? Two Views on Genre Separation.” Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 2, 2006, pp. 33–38. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20864645.