2018 Charleston Library Conference

As academic libraries seek to enrich and engage the “whole student” experience, they seek to intersect with cultural, recreational, and community endeavors to help develop smart, engaged citizens and leaders. Popular or recreational reading collections are just one of myriad ways that academic libraries contribute to these efforts. This panel discussion will feature perspectives from three libraries (one private medium sized university, one large public STEM-focused, one large public comprehensive university) and their take on the role of popular reading collection in academic libraries. The panelists will address opportunities and challenges of their popular reading collection as well as collection/acquisition strategies, target audiences, promotion of the collection, use of the collection, content types (including graphic novels), and perceived impact of the popular reading collection on campus. Attendees can expect to be part of an interactive discussion on how to launch and configure popular reading collections for their target audience, assess the use and potential impact of these collections, share creative ways to promote the collections, and learn about strategies for contextualizing these collections within the academic library mission and vision.