I chose the big wall in LL2 that stores the majority of the “leisure reading” books at Bost.
I find this space perplexing.
I can think of why the “leisure reading” books are separated from the other books. They are separated out of convenience. Bost doesn’t own the books but leases them – this wall allows the “leisure reading” books to be efficiently moved in and out of the library in accordance to what’s on the New York Times bestsellers list. But it is also away from the other books in the library out of convenience in such that it doesn’t “challenge” Bobst’s reputation of being a research library whilst providing students with reading material that has every opportunity to be just as useful and rewarding in their academic careers – but hasn’t been labeled as academic yet.
This begs the question, who decides which books can lend themselves to academic research? How do they come to this decision? How long does it usually take for books to make this transition in reputation? I’ve seen novels from authors in the “leisure reading” section whose books I’ve borrowed from the rest of the library. Why one novel but not the other?
The location and the display of these books are also interesting. This collection is found in the basement on bookshelves that, unlike any other bookshelf at least I’ve seen at Bobst, displays the books’ cover as opposed their spines. Usually, the most important/rare books are kept in the basement to protect them from sunlight. Moreover, seeing the books covers’ adds an air of importance to them. Keeping these two facts in mind, when ones look at this wall one could very likely imagine that this is a collection of important books if one didn’t know that this picture was taken at Bobst (one must also squint hard enough to miss the “Leisure Books are now in alphabetical order by author’s last name” sign).
(Side note: “Leisure Books are now in alphabetical order by author’s last name” can imply that this is some sort of improvement in organization. Does anyone know if they were possibly organized by genre and then last name before? What could this additionally say about Bobst?)