What do librarians really want?

[elfs]

A fascinating look at what librarians really buy. The Online Computer Library Center did a poll of all of its members, of all of its English-speaking libraries world wide, searching through their catalogs, and came up with a list of the most popular books, the ones that most libraries had. The census came in first, the Bible second. "Garfield" came before the Baghavad Gita, Doonsebury before War and Peace, Origin of the Species (115) just before The Far Side (118), and although the Lord of the Rings comes in tenth and there are nominal SF elements early on (The Little Prince, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dianetics for example), the first piece of modern SF is Dune at 708.

Read the Complete OCLC List.

Comments

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

The census came first?

Unless these are all in the same country, I'd be a little surprised if they really were counting the same book. The Bible has multiple translations into English, but I'd accept that as the same book, just as there is more than one translation of The Three Musketeers or Beowulf.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

Did you notice that all Doonesbury titles (e.g. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!) were lumped together under one rubric, Doonesbury, thus boosting their aggregated importance? Ditto for Garfield, Peanuts, etc. But plays of Shakespeare's each get a separate listing. If "Shakespeare" were treated like "Garfield", would these plays top even the census?

Similarly, "Mother Goose" ranks high. Is there a definitive text? Or are there dozens upon dozens of collections of nursery rhymes, most of whom have many rhymes in common? There's a listing for the "Arabian Nights"; and again I think this is an aggregation of dozens and dozens of different selections and bowdlerizations, with children's books adding to the total just as much as Sir Richard Burton's translation.

I think the list qualifies as amusement, but not as serious scholarship.

[spiralsong.livejournal.com]

...the first piece of modern SF is Dune at 708...

I'm afraid I found a few others... even if one excludes science fiction aimed specifically towards children and young adults (A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle at #250,) one cannot ignore the placement of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 at #272 or HG Welles War of the Worlds at #309. Bradbury's Martian Chronicles clock in at #439 as well.

I agree with abostick59... certainly amusing, but possibly not much more. (And I wish MY local library were representative of this list... I'd have a lot more to read without having to get things on loan from other branches!) :)

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

When someone claims to have a list of the most popular library books, I expect them to have circulation statistics. That's what I'd like to see ranked. Of course, all the library books that are really most popular get stolen, and they're mostly about sex and drugs.