While reading the New York Times article in the Dewey-less library in Arizona, I ran across a somewhat disturbing passage.
….. while even chain bookstores still put out classics like “Jane Eyre,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Moby Dick” for summer display, at Perry such books have taken a back seat to Paris Hilton’s “Confessions of an Heiress,” a children’s book by the New York Yankee catcher Jorge Posada and Chris Gardner’s “Pursuit of Happyness.”
I know Ranganathan’s five laws. But, is this what he meant? Is this the right way to go? Is there something wrong with the classics? Should a Dostoevsky or a Tolstoy be hidden in the back corner in the library? Doesn’t it imply that a library with Paris Hilton on display is cool and a library with Les Miserable sucks? I know that the library is not merely a place for education. I understand the library should try to serve different people’s different needs. But by putting books on display, the library is recommending users to read Paris Hilton. Am I too prejudicial against Paris Hilton’s book without even having seen it? Should any kind of reading be encouraged? Oh, I should have taken collection development course.
Anyway, I don’t really understand the way the classics are treated. They are so hard to find, and if they are ever available, they are usually a couple of decades old with unpleasant smell, and come in series format with almost illegibly small fonts. They are simply prohibiting. People are pretty conscious about preserving historical sites as can be seen in the activities of UNESCO. I wonder who cares about the literary heritage of mankind.
I agree with you about classics getting the shaft at a lot of local libraries. Several times I’ve wanted to read a classic, but the one copy the library has smells like it was left in the rain for a week and then thrown in a dark closet. Some of it may have to do with marketing. Many classics are out of copyright, so they’re easy to produce cheaply which a lot of times can translate into not pretty. Still, it wouldn’t hurt libraries to update some of their ancient copies. I think it’d be nice for libraries to introduces classics as complimentary literature to titles that are popular. I personally try to go back and for between “fun” books and classics (though many times they overlap). Although I am baffled as to how to present complimentary literature to anything related by Ms. Hilton.