Where Have These Books Been?

Perhaps the hottest button issue in the library world is diversity in your collection. Do you have diverse voices? Are you adding more? Have you found holes and blindspots in the stacks and what are you doing to fill them? I can say that if your library is being run by a cognizant librarian, the answer to these questions is going to be, "Yes." (The key here is cognizant librarian). As someone who has purchased for a library, I can tell you a librarian pours over the catalogs like a kid in a candy store. We see a new book that looks good, and we buy it. A watchful librarian will be looking at the patrons coming into their library, use circulation data, and buy books that meet the needs of both. It is what we are trained to do in library school after all. If the community has a strong population of a particular group, it needs to be represented in the library! Period. And, it needs to be made known that group is represented on the shelf. This really, is not new. If you read any history of the libraries, there are going to be examples abound of librarians and libraries going "to the mattresses" for book unpopular to the status quo of the times. We love to spit in the eyes of the powers that be, and we loooove to find books that won't stay on our shelves

I think, the key here is having the books available to stock our selves. Admittedly, I am new to the library world, but I can see a drastic change in the short time I have been in the field.  A trickle at first, there is now a flood of books by a plethora of authors with diverse perspectives bursting on the scene that were not there even 5 years ago. Are we to believe there is a bumper crop of new authors giving voice OR have those books been cut off from the mainstream at the headwaters? In my limited experience, I think the dam lies at the feet of those who get books published. To use a biblical analogy, those candles have been hidden under a bushel. Why else would they suddenly appear when it is profitable to flood the market? And while fair to remind you of the supply and demand theories, the fact remains we librarians cannot buy what is not for sale. 

Please do not read this article as anything other than a recognition of the work libraries should be, and are doing on a regular basis. Yes, there is plenty of room for improvement. Yes libraries and librarians have work to be done in bring new voices to light, but there is a great effort made/being made to represent the communities and people coming into the library. In our very nature, libraries and librarians are trying to diversify and represent many different groups as equitably as they can. We can only face this challenge with the resources we have and open minds, but we cannot get blood from a beet. Suffice it to stay, the publishing world (or at the very least the publishing world libraries have the means to congregate in) has been trend following in many regards instead of being trend setting.