Popular Reading Collections in Academic Libraries: Goals, Parameters, and Campus Reactions

Popular reading collections are just one of myriad ways that academic libraries contribute to the cultural, recreational, and community endeavors of our campus populations. Based on the perspectives from three libraries (one private medium-sized university, one large public STEM-focused, one large public comprehensive university), this paper discusses opportunities and challenges of popular reading collections 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.