Romance Genre and Collection Management in Australia and New Zealand Public Libraries

Despite focusing on stories that end happily ever after, the romance genre and public libraries have a difficult history. Many library’s acquisition policies include the purchasing of romances for the collection and even provide a percentage of the funds to romances. Other libraries purchase a small number of romances but there are some that are only collected via donation. The collection development of romance is not clear-cut. Cataloguing of romance novels shows that not all books have full catalogue records nor are certain types of romances even considered worthy of being listed in the catalogue. The catalogue is about the discoverability of materials (all formats) for the customers. This research explores the purchasing, collection development and cataloguing practices of romance novels in Australian and New Zealand public libraries. A survey was sent to the public library staff responsible for collection development in Australia and New Zealand. Questions about collection development and cataloguing were then combined with data derived from catalogue searches of romance novel titles in a sample of public libraries in a mixed-method approach to explore the perceptions and practices within public libraries in Australia and New Zealand.