Skip to main content

Special Topics Paper: Celebrity Book Clubs

Book clubs have been around since, well since the American library has been around. Actually before American libraries the French apparently had salons that had book clubs (Chelton, 2001). In more recent history Oprah brought about the celebrity book club. Of course, before Oprah Americans read books, but reading was apparently on the decline. Maybe this had something to do with Americans watching more TV than reading, but Oprah set out to get Americans reading again. Through her television talk show Oprah brought about a book club that got many Americans reading again.

Other celebrities followed suit. In Britain a talk show husband and wife pair Richard and Judy had a talk show that went on for several years. As time passed book both Oprah and Richard and Judy's book clubs became top book clubs in their respective countries. Oprah's book club was a sensation and soon became an online presence. The book club gave way to other celebrity book clubs from the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Lena Dunham, Emma Watson, and even Mark Zurkerberg.

One of the major implications of celebrity book clubs is their ability to influence library patrons' reading choices. As librarians we are responsible for selecting books for use now and that will be of use later to patrons. High demand for celebrity book club books can skew the libraries decisions in selecting books. Librarians must anticipate the needs of users and determine which books to purchase based on what is popular now and what will be needed later.

Overall celebrity book clubs have helped to develop a sense of readership in America again. This sense of readership is essential in keeping Americans reading. As librarians we should hone in on this sense of readership and encourage it by having the selected book club books available as well as books that relate to those books. We should always keep in mind the needs of the reader as well as their wants.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 14 Prompt: Separating Fiction

Prompt:  Consider yourself part of the collection management committee of your local library, or a library at which you would like to work. You must decide whether or not to separate GBLTQ fiction and African American Fiction from the general collection to its own special place. Some patrons have requested this, yet many staff are uncomfortable with the idea - saying it promotes segregation and disrupts serendipitous discovery of an author who might be different from the reader. Do you separate them? Do you separate one and not the other? Why or why not? You must provide at least 3 reasons for or against your decision. Feel free to use outside sources - this is a weighty question that is answered differently in a lot of different libraries. Response: I like to be on the side of forward thinking. Librarians have a duty to bring certain issues and in this mater types of fiction to the light. Placing GBLTQ and African American Fiction among the general fiction is almost like hiding it i
5 comments
Read more

Urban Fiction Annotation

Tile: The Wife of a Hustler Author: Porscha Sterling 126 pages ISBN: 9781511476461 Synopsis: Vanessa is The Wife of a Hustler  and she is tired of the hustle. Or is she? Vanessa loves her husband Ty and would do anything to keep him, including kill. However, Vanessa is having a hard time trusting Ty with her heart since he has been making more and more frequent trips to see his son and his baby mama Trinity. Trinity would love nothing more than to be Ty's main focus. She would be his main focus if she could just get rid of Vanessa. Trouble finds Trinity just in time for Ty to help out and stay a while. All the trouble causes Vanessa to get into a bit of trouble on her own. Will Vanessa be able to help Ty keep his drug empire? Will she keep her man from being taking by the Trinity the Florida's princess of the drug game? Urban Fiction Appeal: Inner-city life/struggle: The character of Trinity and her brother Loon were abandoned as children and raised themselves in t
4 comments
Read more

Week 13 Prompt: YA & Graph Novels

PROMPT: Though this week's group of "genres" all seem very different, they all have in common the fact that many people don't feel that they are legitimate literary choices and libraries shouldn't be spending money on them or promoting them to adults. The common belief is that adults still don't or shouldn't read that stuff. How can we as librarians, work to ensure that we are able to serve adults who enjoy YA literature or graphic novels? Or should we? RESPONSE: I am of the personal belief that as librarians we should not interfere with what people want to read. In any case, we should be glad that patrons want to read no matter what it is that they want to read. There are several things we can do as librarians to support adult readers who enjoy YA literature and/or graphic novels. Location, location, location. One of the key aspects of supporting adult readers is the location of adult or, in this case, young adult and graphic novel titles. If graphic
3 comments
Read more