David Rothman writes “Fun historical fact: In the late 19th century, some public librarians were so stuffy that they wouldn’t even offer Horatio Alger books.
“It is certainly not the function of the public library to foster the mind-weakening habit of novel-reading among the very classes — the uneducated, busy or idle — whom it is the duty of the public library to lift to a higher plane of thinking,” said William Stevenson, the head librarian for the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, even today, some librarians fail to understand the connection between popular fiction and the fostering of literacy. Isabelle Fetherston, author of the Senior Friendly Libraries blog has written a fascinating post for TeleRead on “Why libraries should offer popular fiction — in both print and e-book formats.””
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