The question then is what should be done when librarians’
quality-based selection does not conform to public demand

National libraries have an obligation to col- lect all of a country’s published works. Collections in other types of libraries are based on selection, the criteria being the library’s goals and user profiles. An aca- demic library selects material based on the needs of students and researchers. A spe- cial library wants to have as comprehen- sive a selection as possible within its spe- cialist area. In both cases selections are made on relatively objective premises. Dif- ferences of opinion are not uncommon, especially when budget restrictions dicta- te, but in general personal feelings and value judgements play a minor role.

The selection process at public libraries
is more subjective. The fundamental
aim of public libraries is to provide
society with access to knowledge,
education and cultural activity; an aim
grounded in the idea of what constitutes
a civilised society. Public libraries
are for everyone, irrespective of age,
ethnicity, sex, religion, nationality or
class. In short the entire population.
This is a vague goal, and difficult to
realise in comparison with libraries
that have a clearly defined user group.

Many countries face the problem of
having an almost non-existent publishing
industry. For libraries in these
countries the concept of material selection
is irrelevant. The Nordic countries,
despite being a relatively small
linguistic community, have a fairly sizeable
publishing industry. The standard
of Nordic public library systems is at a
level that many countries would
consider unattainable and the concept
of having time available for material
selection would be regarded as a
luxury.

Quality

Swedish public libraries are founded on
a long tradition of popular adult education.
The material they make available is generally
of a high quality.
The concept of quality is however to a large
degree associated with the selection of
fiction. Swedish public library staff has
spent a lot of time discussing which
novels should or should not be purchased.
The question is whether or not
this time could have been devoted to
other more strategic activities. In the
long run this kind of subjective discussion
seems unnecessary. Values change.
That which at one point in time was
deemed controversial can, a few decades later,
be considered harmless. And
the question of what constitutes quality
is difficult to define.

During the radical Seventies we were
quick to reject romantic novels for
female readers (e.g., so-called manor
novels, fiction from Harlequin, Mills &
Boon, etc.). The reason for this was
that these books were thought to be
devoid of literary quality. To a certain
extent, this was true. But literary value
judgements were not always consistent.
Lightweight adventure and war novels
for male readers embodying the same
literary quality as the above-mentioned
romantic novels were more easily accepted.
This illustrates how difficult it
is to be consistent in regard to literary
value judgement and that the question
of what constitutes literary quality
always involves an element of subjectivity.

Populism

That this was a contentious issue was
clearly illustrated a little over ten years
ago when The Swedish National Council for
Cultural Affairs initiated a project designed
to reassess selection and
purchase routines. Three libraries participated:
They were to purchase more
on user demand and weed redundant
copies in order to highlight the more
active sections of the collection. As
well, the libraries were to depart from
the norms of the Swedish classification
system and display titles in a more
user-friendly manner.
Everything went smoothly at two of the
participating libraries. All hell broke
loose at the third. The so-called GÖKproject
(GÖK, acronym for the Swedish cities of Gothenburg,
Örnsköldsvik and Kalmar) became the most
discussed and debated public library
project of the century. The molehill of
press cuttings soon became a mountain.

The critics were extremely vocal; they
perceived the experiment to be a threat
to the fundamental precepts of the
public library system and felt that the
motive behind the project was purely
populist. The project was regarded as a
threat both to the very idea of public
libraries and to librarians as a professional group.
Instead, critics advocated
reinforcing the instructive role of libra-
rians and suggested that librarians
should focus more on advice and
guidance apropos quality fiction. The
project was seen as an attempt to make
public libraries more marketoriented, a
concept which had a decidedly negative
bias.

When the project was terminated in
1995 the English cultural consultancy
Comedia was engaged to conduct an
evaluation. Comedia’s report (Evaluating the GÖK project. The innovative
capacity of the Swedish Library System)
stated, inter alia, that “The concern that
user influence in book buying would
result in the libraries buying poor
quality books has not been borne out
by events. Very few of the books
bought by user demand can be deemed
to be poor quality books”.
Comedia further declared that “The
ensuing media attacks on the library
service revealed the lack of confidence
within the profession and a sense of
isolation. Where do the Swedish libraries
turn for intellectual support for
new thinking and developments within
the service? How does the service as a
whole justify changes beyond the immediate
context of each local library
and understand the role of the library
in the wider debates of social, economic
and cultural change in Sweden?
This raises the question of how far the
Swedish library service is an integrated
national service or is a series of more
autonomous institutions linked only by
a strong professional culture”.

The critics dismissed the report.

Easy reading

The project has now been forgotten.
Public libraries have been compelled to
face other more pressing problems.
How to interact with ICT? Is it desirable
to limit access to the Internet?
How to cope with falling circulation
figures? Does the public library have a
role to play in the future?

Whether or not public libraries have
succeeded in spreading quality fiction
is an interesting question. If circulation
figures showing which books are most
borrowed are anything to go by, then
one could conclude that this ambition
has not always been realised.

In order to ascertain public library remuneration
levels the Swedish Authors’
Fund conducts a yearly survey to determine
which authors are borrowed from
public and school libraries. Roughly 98
million loans in all. The most recent
summary from 2005 shows that Astrid
Lindgren with a little over a million
loans continues to be the most borrowed
author. The other titles in the
top twenty are all children’s books.

The most borrowed adult books are
thrillers, detective and suspense novels
by bestselling Swedish authors such as
Håkan Nesser, Henning Mankell, Jan
Guillou and Liza Marklund: easyreading
page turners. While not without
literary merit they are hardly
contenders for the Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Prize in Literature should
be a guarantee of literary quality. Loans
of Nobel Laureates, however, are low.
Selma Lagerlöf leads with just over
80,000 loans. She received the Nobel
Prize in 1909. Loans of Nobel laureates’
works soar when the Prize is announced,
only to diminish within a relatively
short time. Loans of Gao Xinjian’s
works were for example 20,000 in 2001,
but only 2,321 four years later.

Public libraries serve the entire population:
An enormous spectrum of tastes
and trends that necessitates managing
of a great variety of individual requests.
The question then is what
should be done when librarians’
quality-based selection does not conform
to public demand.

This should not be construed as
meaning that public libraries are negligent
regarding selection issues. Rather,
the question is if it is reasonable that
the main focus should be – as appears
to be the case – on the selection of
fiction. A library must, of course, en-
sure that works of Nobel Laureates are
available even if they are not among
the most borrowed items. Axiomatically,
demand for suspense and romance
must also be met.

In 2005 Catherine Cookson’s novels
were borrowed 100,000 times. The
works of Albert Camus 11,354 times.
Would a more active approach to
guidance and advisory strategies be
able to change this?