This research began as an investigation of the St. Albert Public Library (SAPL). An exhaustive analysis of this topic within the time I had to complete it was not possible, so I allowed the research itself to redefine the direction and eventual limits of this report. As a result, a central question presented itself: how does the promotion, curation, and circulation of the print collection at the St. Albert Public Library operate to determine a reader’s selection?
My methodology for this project was empirical, leaning heavily on the techniques of book history and ethnomethodology. Heather Dolman, Public Services Manager for SAPL, generously provided an interview to aid my research. Afterwards, she toured me around the library to highlight areas she felt would be useful for this project. I observed the library on three separate occasions for the purposes of this project. I also have used this library for about a decade, and so have some baseline familiarity with it.
The library’s use of visual real estate in the entryway is the most immediately apparent way in which it influences the reading habits of its customers. On either side of the doorway, dedicated shelves display forty-two front-faced recently released and generously spaced books. Authors like Tom Clancy, Danielle Steel, and Karen Kingsbury seem at home here under the banner marking “bestsellers.” For the librarians, this is a high value area, so they pay great attention to keeping it fully stocked. Indeed, based on my observation, holes in this display are filled within about one minute, most often by librarians taking books directly from check-in to the wall. As a result, these are the most highly circulated books in SAPL. A decal on each cover visibly describes this high circulation and defines unique rules for checking out bestsellers: shorter borrowing time and a stipulation against renewals. Talking about the bestsellers, the library’s Public Services Manager told me that, “More people just come in and pull stuff off of those displays than will go and browse the stacks” (Dolman). This material satisfies many of the library’s readers even before they get through the entrance.
Carefully curated multimedia displays dot the open floor further past the doorway. These small freestanding shelves collect various print and audiovisual materials and group them by topic of interest. Examples of feature displays include a seasonally recurring “Gardening” display, a temporary “Fathers’ Day” display, and a permanent “Food” display. Contrary to the bleeding-edge newness and novelistic bent of the bestsellers display, these feature shelves include material of various release dates and formats. The “Health and Wellness” display brings together popular how-to books on fitness, recipe books, back-issues of health magazines, exercise DVDs, and biographies on athletes or fitness instructors. Often, supplementary print explains the content of the display, such as the “Local Award Winners” bookmarks inside copies of Bradley Somer’s Fishbowl. These displays are impressively up-to-date: the day after Muhammad Ali died, there was a section marked with his name and filled with his biographies. Heather Dolman said a lot about the strategic importance of these displays. In our interview, she explained:
Downstairs [in the feature displays] we get to pull together different subject matters that might be in different areas of nonfiction upstairs. We find by doing that, quite frankly it puts stuff in people’s face that they wouldn’t normally . . . stumble across in the stacks. And so they are probably taking things that wouldn’t normally have gone to checkout just because something piques their interest. Things like that that people might not normally decide that day that they were going to search that out, but because they see it down there in the displays they’ll get it. It’s all marketing, really. We end up setting up those displays more like a bookstore.
It is important to consider how the librarians choose which books to promote, through displays or otherwise. Librarians have considerable agency in their recommendations. Each genre and section on the library is managed by a librarian with a related preference or expertise. They are expected to be able to give recommendations based on other books that a patron has enjoyed, among other criteria. Indeed, the library offers to furnish patrons with entire reading lists this way. Monthly “book talk” meetings allow librarians to share these kinds of recommendations with each other, so that they may pass them on when needed. Where a librarian’s personal knowledge fails, they are encouraged to access external resources that will “help people find that next good read” (Dolman). The foremost of these is NoveList, a service that networks and sorts similar books. Librarians may create custom print media and pamphlets using these recommendations. Such pamphlets are placed in genre-specific areas. These pamphlets are replaced at least once a year, or as often as the librarians are motivated to refresh them. This kind of book promotion relies heavily on individual librarians and their passions.
The St. Albert Public Library provides selective access to its collection through many small peripheral offshoots. SAPL began as one such a satellite, and so values this type of expansion. The library provides books for St. Albert’s network of Little Free Libraries; locally accessible take-a-book, leave-a-book sites. SAPL organizes volunteer programs that select books to take to retirement homes for weekly library days. St. Albert has a growing senior demographic, and a large number of retirement homes per capita, making this a significant audience that otherwise may have limited access to the library. The volunteer that runs this program spoke to me briefly, saying that she takes around fifty books out, of which a portion are requests. She selects books based on her own perception of the readers’ preferences, in part using personal knowledge. These books are checked out on a single account registered by the program, instead of by the individual readers. Similar programs are run for shut-ins and the infirm, as well as the hospital. A new program is beginning this summer that takes childrens’ books around the city in a van, “Like an ice cream truck” (Dolman).
Curation of the collection is a passive but important way in which the library influences the reading selection of patrons. Libraries legally own and lend books just like private citizens, paying no additional fee for their high public circulation. Indeed, because of discounts from specialized library vendors, they pay even less than you or I for a print copy of a book. Most books come from these specialized vendors, but the library also purchases books more plainly through nearby brick and mortar bookstores. To sum up the library’s sourcing practices, Dolman said, “We also get some of our local materials through Audrey’s, they’ll give us a discount, as well. The Chapters here will give us a discount. But for the most part, it comes through special vendors.”
Librarians consult external resources including publisher sales figures and library wait lists to help them determine which books to add to the collection. The vast majority of books purchased are recent releases. By purchasing extra copies of high demand books, SAPL keeps a ratio of about three holds per copy. Patrons more directly aid in choosing books through the suggest-a-book feature. The library will buy almost any book requested by a patron, relying on the demand of one person as a measure of the book’s greater public appeal. The Public Services Manager was confident in this approximation, saying, “For the most part if you’re interested in something there’s likelihood that somebody else is going to be interested seeing it as well.” In the few instances where a purchase is rejected, as is often the case with obscure academic resources, inter-library loans through more specialized libraries will still provide access to the book.
The SAPL building normally houses one hundred thousand items, but is currently over capacity at one hundred eighty-eight thousand items. The resultant space crunch forces the quantity of the collection to remain in equilibrium: “Every time we order a book, it means one has to go out. We have to be rigorous about weeding” (Dolman). Books are weeded based on their physical condition and their circulation stats. Books that have seen enough use to be ruined are recycled and replaced with new copies. On the other hand, a book that hasn’t been checked out in twelve to eighteen months will appear on a list, prompting a librarian to choose to keep or get rid of the book. Interestingly, not all material is treated equally at this stage: “Some of them we will still keep. Timelines and the history section are hard, because people might not be accessing it as much as they might a popular novel, but we should still have some of this material, especially local stuff” (Dolman). Books confirmed for removal attain a second life through the library’s used book sale, held twice a year outside the front doors. Some books become donations to prisons or schools in need. The lifespan of a book is not over when the library is finished with it.
There is a rich field of research remaining on this topic. More analysis could be done on the library’s physical space and the curation of its collection. Major topics lay yet untouched; the planned SAPL branch library and how the collection will be split, the transportation of books to and from the library, the funding and spending of the library, the pricing of ebooks and electronic media. That is without even broaching broader areas integral to the library, such as community programming, technological literacy, reading experience, and more. Further research opportunities abound at the St. Albert Public Library.
Each year, a million items are checked out of SAPL. Twenty thousand items new items are brought in to replace twenty thousand items going out. The library sees eight hundred thousand separate visits. In curating, weeding, organizing, and promoting their collection, the library shapes the reading selection and reading experience of each reader.
