Tidbits From My Special Topic Paper

 

Do Celebrity Book Clubs Help or Hurt the Public Library?

                How popular are celebrity book club books in the public library? Jessica Hilburn a librarian in rural Pennsylvania had the same burning question. She has a small purchase budget for new materials. She has struggled between demand driven acquisition or more intellectual quality material. Should she spend her meager budget on celebrity book club books? She decided the best way to make this difficult decision is to survey her fellow librarians. She created a survey that focused on whether the librarian’s main acquisition for fiction were celebrity book club books. Twenty-four librarians responded and the answer was surprising. Only half paid any attention to popular culture and celebrity book clubs. The other half that did focus on celebrities, Reese Witherspoon was the clear winner in popularity. Jenna Bush was second and poor Oprah was at the bottom in third. “Although celebrity book clubs and popular culture were very low on the purchasing factor, they still have a place in public library collections when moved by public demand.” (Hilburn, 2022). Hilburn concluded that it all depends on your community on whether to spend your budget money on celebrity books. It is important to know if your patrons are interested in popular culture or prefer more traditional books.

Reece Witherspoon

                Witherspoon has a different approach when she chooses a book to promote. She likes to pick woman authors whose stories promote wellbeing. She has become just as popular as Oprah with many public libraries dedicating space on their webpage to her book picks. Here is an example from the Chicago Public Library website: https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/199702383/1211190453. After a simple Google search, it is safe to say, many public libraries support advertising celebrity book clubs. While Oprah was the queen of celebrity books in the early 2000’s, Reece knocked her out of first place as the lead celebrity book picker.  An author may feel like they won their publishers golden ticket if Witherspoon chooses their book. The likelihood of their book being made into a movie is high. After watching the movie, patrons may decide to check out the book from the library to see if it is similar to how the plot in the movie is betrayed. Which increases material being checked out. A win for everyone.

                So, do celebrity book clubs help or hurt the public library? After reading through all the articles and surveys I could find, my opinion is celebrity book clubs are helpful to public libraries. The book clubs motivate people to read, which brings them to libraries to check the books out. Many public libraries actively promote celebrity book clubs. Here is an example of a library in Texas that has celebrity book picks as a genre on their overdrive website. https://irvinglibrary.overdrive.com/collection/1067842. Overall, I believe the celebrity book clubs are here to stay. If a librarian is torn on whether to purchase celebrity book club picks, I would go for it. Start small with a couple of copies and see if the hold list starts to grow into a long wait. You can also purchase more books if needed. Your patrons will thank you for giving the book clubs a try.