Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
The libraries are giving their customers what the customers want and not what they think the customers should want.
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Corrected: The libraries are giving
some of their customers what the customers want and
not what they think the customers should want nothing to the rest of their customers.
It seems to me that the libraries’ mandate should be to meet the needs of all their potential customers to the extent they can, spreading the wealth. I suspect the libraries are willing to go all romance because it makes their circulation numbers look better with titles that are quick reads with lots of churn. But the history lovers also pay taxes and deserve to have books that appeal to them, too. I’m not suggesting a one to one trade off; obviously fewer books that are both longer and slower reads should be purchased, but with data from the Libby app it wouldn’t be all that hard to develop an algorithm.