Week 14- To Separate or Not Separate?

Pull up a chair, the owl is in.

So last week's prompt was about the question of purchasing genres that, although aimed to a younger audience, are actually read by all. ( And nope, have not gotten to a street lit book yet. Maybe this week, along with an Brandy or Nicki Minaj CD to set the mood). This week, we'll call this prompt Questionable Genre 2,  but it's really dealing with  the issue of separating certain genres from the general fiction collection ( like African American Fiction or Gay Lit)



While I can think of one reason the idea of separating AAF and GBLTQ may sort of send the message of " We feel your race or orientation is special enough to have it's own shelf", there are many reason to say NO to separating these two genres from the general collection ( I cam up with four.)


1. What exactly is this genre? Yes, I know from this course what constitutes a romance, horror, adventure, YA, NA, etc, but what books actually say " I'm African-American fiction" or " I"m gay lit". Are we looking at books that feature lots of African-Americans or books by African-American authors? Adult, Nonfiction, or YA?If there is just one character that is black, or if they are interracial/intercultural, or written by a white author(like James Patterson and his Alex Cross series), do they count? What if the Black author does not write AAF? And why are just looking at books with black Americans, not from other countries ( and do White Africians, like Alexander McCall Smith count? If it's just stories with lots of African-Americans by Africian-American  authors, it's a small collection!! Same with gay lit, what exactly defines the genre? Do all the characters have to be gay ( or lesbian, bisexual, trangender, or question) or just one? Or is it books by gay authors? What if's written by a straight person ( example- found a Danielle Steel book called Coming Out under the subject heading of " Coming out ( sexual orientation)" which is about family drama at a debutante party and one gay character)? Or what if the gay author did not write a gay lit book ( example- gay actor Chris Colfer of Glee writes a children's series about fairy tales and there are no gay characters. Surely, you don't want to place that series with gay lit because it's a children's book!!) If its books with all gay people by gay authors, it's small!!

2. Author Issue, Might be More than one Genre- As I mentioned my first reason, not every black author writes African-American Fiction, and not every gay author writes gay lit. Also, most books might have more than one genre. For example, the late author E. Lynn Harris was a gay, black author who wrote stories featuring African-American men were closeted gay men. One might say to put in the AAF section, but a gay person might say it's gay lit. Do you have to please both by giving Harris his own shelf ( which would be a waste because it would just be 16 books or split the book in two???)

3. Where's my shelf? For some reason, I kind of feel this request being made by someone is very politically correct ( maybe not, but I will assume). So let's say we do this to please this PC person... and then they want a Christian shelf, a Hispanic shelf,  a Women's shelf, etc. By the time you sort out all these gender, culture, religion and whatever in background ( and destroy some books because dang it, there might be a  Blind Lesbian  Hispanic Western-Romance book by a Jewish author), your general collection is ... realistic fiction featuring white men ( who hopefully have no religion and no culture or else your general collection is gone.) Keeping all the books of various cultures,genders, orientations, whatever within the general collection is saying every book is equal, meant to be read by all.

4. Who is the intended audience? As we all talked about last week, pretty much everyone reads YA, street, whatever, not the intended audience. So, figure everyone at some point reads African-American Fiction ( besides the black community) and gay lit ( besides the gay community). I've read a few AAF books ( like Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christoper Paul Curtis and the Sassy series by Sharon Draper.) Placing them on their own shelves is saying " Only black Americans read African-American Fiction" and " Only gay people read David Levithan and other gay lit books). Obviously from this class I have learned to be open into reading beyond what I like, so that is why it makes sense to keep African-American Fiction and gay lit in the general collection, not separate shelves.

Now maybe if the library has a big black population or big GLBTQ population, it might work. But, as everyone has been saying in their prompts, if you want to highlight these genre, things like a display, a bookmark, a webpage, or a book club might be more useful.

Sorry that went a bit long. I'm gonna see about browsing some of the articles this weekend ( amid Easter and planning a program for toddlers). Thank you and Happy Easter!!