.... Because teachers still have children read Mark Twain, books by Mark Twain are still represented on the shelves of Los Angeles Public Library.
The library's funds have been so cut that according to a librarian I spoke with very recently, there HAS WAS NO BOOK BUYING BETWEEN JANUARY and JUNE 2008.
If you go to the LAPL start page you can follow the links to suggest a book purchase. This is something I do frequently. I was frustrated that not a single book I suggested had been purchased.
ON THE BRANCH level, any FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY GROUP can designate some of the funds that are earned through volunteer driven book sales be used for buying books that librarians at that branch prioritize. Librarians in general are NOT HAPPY WITH THE POPULAR LIBRARY MENTALITY OF LAPL...
"Popular Library" means that if a book is NOT TAKEN OUT FREQUENTLY it will be targeted to be taken off the shelf and make it to a free book cart, twenty five cent buy-a-book shelf, at a Friends sale, be donated elsewhere, or even make it to the Garbage Can. "Popular Library" means that if a book is a best seller there may be dozens of that title purchased, distributed among many branches.
Thus Pulitzer Prize winning South African writer Nadine Gordimer, who early on revealed herself to write political protest fiction as she plotted her characters through apartide, because she is not 'well read' by library patrons, got the boot based on not being well known among the general public of Los Angeles, while classic Mark Twain remains.
I have a suggestion to those of you who have library accounts at LAPL and favorite authors who are not 'well read.' Take out that author's books from time to time just to send a signal to a system that may well be more computerized than based on the knowledge and wisdom of expensively educated and intelligent librarians!
