To add or not to add popular titles aka non-academic titles to academic library collection has always in the debateable among the librarians.
While an academic library mission goal is to provide research and support to the faculties with quality academic materials, it is also as important to provide some leisure reading materials to the library users. This is to not-overloaded the users with only academic stuff.
This paper provides a case study over the period of 37 months on steps for academic librarians to use in building popular materials collections. The study showed that popular materials are well-used among all library users.
Source: Ann W. Hallyburton, Heidi E. Buchanan, Timothy V. Carstens, (2011) “Serving the whole person: popular materials in academic libraries”, Collection Building, Vol. 30 Iss: 2, pp.109 – 112
