Week 14 Prompt

This topic really hits home, because I actually am in charge of the collection development at my library for adult and teen materials. There has been a very long discussion about if we want to move forward with further dividing our genre fiction, so that patrons can more easily find what they want, and separating LGBTQ and African American materials has become a topic to come up. For this reason, I actually tried to step back and really think about what side I wanted to come down on for this debate; I could see the argument from both sides. On one hand, you could argue that they should be separated for ease of patron use and for those that are specifically seeking a book with characters of a race or sexuality. On the other hand, this verges on the line of segregation and isolating these materials. Ultimately, I believe that we should not separate genres by the demographics of their characters, simply because I do not think that there is a good place to draw the line. If you allow this, how much further will we go?

The first argument that I will offer for not separating is that books should not be separated by their character’s demographics, but rather by their content. I believe that it has the potential of getting too complicated, because say that you have a science fiction with African American or LGBTQ characters. Patrons that are looking for science fiction books would then have to look in the section for African American and LGBTQ in addition to the science fiction genre section to find all of the books that are classified as science fiction. Just because it has characters with a specific sexual orientation or race, does not mean that it is no longer a science fiction novel. The same is true with any of the genres. For instances where patrons are seeking these specific character demographics, the library staff should have lists on hand or be aware of books in different genres to assist their patrons. That is what we are here for.

The second argument in favor of not separating is that you run the risk of people that are seeking African American characters or LGBTQ characters feeling alienated and thrown off into a separate section. This is creating a stigma around those novels, rather than letting that patron peruse through the entirety of the collections just like everyone else. I realize that the ‘We Need Diverse Books’ movement is very popular right now, and I am fully in support of this movement, but I believe that those diverse books should be integrated into the collection at large. Something similar is how there is a stigma around checking out romance novels. I have patrons that will actively seek slow times in the library to come in and get their romance novels, so that they are not seen checking them out. If we separate LGBTQ and African American literature, I fear that the same behavior would occur and that patrons would fear judgment for going to a separated out section. 

The final reason that I believe these books should not be separated is that some libraries, including mine, just do not have the space or the man-hours to take on this kind of project. Forget what side you fall on for a minute and just think about the sheer amount of time it would take to switch over not only the current collection, but also future materials. It is also more expensive, if your library chooses to include labels. Labels from a company such as Demco can cost hundreds of dollar for a minimal amount of stickers.

Ultimately, the cons just outweigh the pros for this kind of separation, in my opinion.