Week Fourteen Prompt Response

Consider yourself part of the collection management committee of your local library, or a library at which you would like to work. You must decide whether or not to separate GBLTQ fiction and Urban Fiction from the general collection to its own special place. Some patrons have requested this, yet many staff are uncomfortable with the idea - saying it promotes segregation and disrupts serendipitous discovery of an author who might be different from the reader. Do you separate them? Do you separate one and not the other? Why or why not?

I would not separate the GBLTQ fiction and Urban Fiction from the general collection to its own special place.  I would agree with the staff who believe that it promotes segregation and disrupts serendipitous discovery of an author who might be different from the reader.  I read one of the articles posted on Erin’s blog (the other link didn’t work for me) and I also looked up the topic on my own, and I can see that some libraries have caved into separating the genres.  I believe it’s important to keep them entwined with other fiction books.  My library doesn’t even separate its collection into different genre categories; all the fiction is mixed together and organized by the author’s last name.  You can find books by Stephen King (horror) and Sophie Kinsella (rom-com) right in the same section!  I love the idea of keeping all the books together because it makes it so easy to stumble upon books you wouldn’t normally be on the lookout for.  A patron could come into the library looking for Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, and spot the cover for The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North and decide to check it out.  Separating GBLTQ and Urban Fiction books from other fiction could result in patrons missing out on books they never knew they wanted to read.