Fiction Acquisition/Fiction Management: Education and Training

Citation

McIvor, S. (1999), "Fiction Acquisition/Fiction Management: Education and Training", New Library World, Vol. 100 No. 6, pp. 289-292. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.1999.100.6.289.1

From the title of this book, one could be forgiven for assuming that it would focus on the education and training of librarians involved the acquisition and management of fiction. In fact, the book is a collection of seven journal articles, with the first article lending its own title to the book itself. This would not seem unreasonable if the remaining articles were selected around the general theme of education and training in the field of fiction librarianship, but training is only referred to in one of the other six articles. Three of the articles concern public libraries, two are about academic libraries and two are essentially themed selections of authors and titles.

Beyond the common theme of fiction, it is difficult to find a link which would justify the publication of this particular collection, until one examines the book’s extensive preamble, from which it transpires that the book is actually a separately bound version of a special thematic issue of the journal The Acquisitions Librarian, and identified as one of The Acquisitions Librarian Monographs/“Separates”. These “monographic co‐editions are intended for either non‐subscribers or libraries which intend to purchase a second copy for their circulating collections”. It is also possible to order the individual journal articles from the publisher, and prospective purchasers may wish to explore this as an alternative, considering the diversity of this collection. Details of prices and ordering information for articles are given on the publisher’s Website, which also gives the table of contents for this book, together with short reviews and other publicity information. The reviewer was unable to access the Website at the address given in the book (http://www.haworth.com), but did eventually locate it at http://www.haworthpressinc.com. The individual articles in the book are also covered by various indexing/abstracting services, with Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and Information Science Abstracts being two of those quoted in the publisher’s list of such services.

For those interested in education and training, the article by Georgine N. Olson (the book’s editor) puts the case for the education and training of fiction librarians in public libraries, and describes methods used in the USA to ascertain exactly how this should implemented. This article effectively sets the scene for education and training in fiction management, but is short on practical specifics and has no list of references to follow up. Olson does, however, mention that Burns Davis, of the Nebraska Library Commission, has been involved in training public librarians in the use of conspectus‐based assessment of their collections, including fiction collections.

The book contains an article by Burns Davis on how to use local marketing characteristics, for example genre categories, to customise conspectus software to provide meaningful assessments of fiction collections, giving an example of an assessment project in a small public library using WLN Conspectus software. This article not only gives a detailed account of the use of this particular software package in collection assessment, but also touches on the difficulties inherent in the classification of fiction for such purposes, and how these may be overcome in this context. What the article does not do, or purport to do, is cover the subject from the perspective of training the librarians involved, as hinted in the Olson article.

For the third item on public libraries, Joyce G. Saricks has produced an excellent article on managing fiction and meeting the needs of clients. The article brings practical experience to bear on several aspects of fiction librarianship, including selection and acquisitions, weeding and on methods to make the collection accessible to readers. The section on budgeting describes in some detail the use of a rental scheme as a means of defraying the cost of purchasing multiple copies of popular titles. The article contains many useful tips and rules of thumb, and would not, therefore, be out of place in a collection on the education and training of fiction librarians, although it should also be of general interest to all involved in fiction management.

As one of the two articles on academic libraries, the article by Rebecca Watson Boone focuses on the experiences of three librarians who select humanities titles in an academic library, examining their job content and their relationships with the faculties they serve. Although the collections of all three librarians contain literature, the focus of the article is on collection librarianship, rather than on the nature of individual collections. In this sense, the article would seem more likely to appeal to those interested in the career development of academic librarians, and be of little interest to fiction specialists outside academic libraries.

On the face of it, an article on fiction provision for recreational reading in academic libraries would seem to have only a minority appeal, considering budgetary contraints. However, this article by Janelle M. Zauha compares two book lease programmes as a means to make this fiction provision affordable, and by so doing makes the article of interest to all fiction librarians involved in, or contemplating, such leasing arrangements in their own library. Although the contractual arrangements with the vendors of the two schemes are set in the USA, and prices are quoted in dollars, it is nevertheless useful for librarians outside the USA to be able to make comparisons with similar schemes in other countries, to ensure that they are receiving a comparable service and value for money.

The last two articles, by Deborah Richey and Mona Kratzert (co‐authored by Deborah Richey) are selective reviews of two areas of literature: “Censored, forbidden and underground Czech novelists” and the “De(construction) of literary theory: the rise of anti‐theory fiction”. Taken as a whole, and given their very specialist nature, it would seem that the natural home for these selections would be the literature collections of academic libraries. Having said this, both selections contain authors with popular appeal (Milan Kundera, David Lodge), and public librarians may also find it useful to dip into these selections when preparing booklists or displays, as both have interesting and informative introductions, as well as information on the individual authors and titles.

The question mark over the collection as a whole does not imply that the articles contained therein are without individual merit, but rather that the individual articles may appeal to different interest groups within the field of fiction librarianship, and so lessen the appeal of the book. The misleading title only serves to emphasise this point, by disappointing those who are expecting a book devoted to education and training in the field of fiction librarianship.