Libraries and a backlist borrowing conundrum

Paul Auster died a few weeks ago and bizarrely I felt sad despite not ever reading any of his books. He felt like a writer whose passing should be marked with respect, even though my reading had neglected him. When my reading group suggested we make our way through New York Trilogy – arguably his best-known work? – this was the excuse I needed, so I popped to the library to see if I could find a copy. There was no copy on the shelves, which didn’t surprise me, but when I enquired at the desk if they could get hold of a copy, I was informed that there wasn’t a copy in the whole of Nottingham City or Nottinghamshire County library service.

My friend reported the same with the digital service. When she enquired why, she was told that they had a policy not to keep fiction on the shelves that’s older than five years, unless it’s a ‘classic.’ The definition of classic remains fluid, I believe. 

There are a number of things about this I find odd. First up, it’s demonstrably not true. I’ve borrowed all sorts of things over the last year and some of those are definitely over five years old. I’ve also seen a number of books on the shelves that are over five years old – they had three whole shelves of Danielle Steel for starters and she’s prolific but she’s not that prolific. Wolf Hall was published over five years ago, for example, arguably an immediate classic by those of us who like it, but who decides? The crime and spy series they have on the shelves span a larger period than five years. I found a collection of short stories by EL Doctorow on the shelves the other week. A fine writer, but arguably less well known than Auster, plus he died in 2015. Why’s he still there?

Second, I’m sure the library service has data about who borrows what and uses this to decide on their stock. So I imagine this decision must be based on data of some kind – that people stop borrowing books after five years or borrow them less. But even then, the policy must be ‘we get rid of them unless people are still reading them.’ Though if you don’t stock it, people can’t borrow it. A vicious circle. Lord knows, we shouldn’t expect libraries to stock every single thing for ever. But, assuming this is the case, it is an odd phenomenon.

There are so many books published that even the most ardent reader cannot read all of them or keep up with publishing. And even the most ardent reader has books that just pass them by at the time of publication. So, you’d think browsing library shelves is a great chance to find something you’d missed for whatever reason. Considering the numbers of things published, five years doesn’t seem that long a time to get through everything. And if you’re perverse like me and don’t read things immediately because you dislike the hype, it could easily be five years until you decide to get round to picking the book up. (I did this with the Time Traveller’s Wife. Loved it, just a lot later than the rest of you.)

The definition of a backlist book is anything that’s older than one year and, doing some research, it seems as if backlist accounts for anything between 50% and 75% publishing sales per year. So, accounting for fluctuating numbers and differences in research styles, that’s a massive chunk. According to some sources, demand for backlist went up during lockdown as people sought out more to read and the events that often support a new release couldn’t take place.

While we don’t have a lot of book discussion in the media these days, the programmes that do talk about books often talk about backlist books. BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read mostly talks about older books (they had something from the 1970s and the 1980s last week, woah.) Even Between the Covers, the Sarah Cox book show, while featuring new books, does also talk about older ones and asks the guests to bring a favourite in with them. The world of podcasts is really mixed. There are some that discuss new books but a good chunk of quality programming discusses backlist – one podcast is actually called Backlisted, for heavens sakes. And then there’s TikTok. I don’t have an account (TikTok is one of those things I’ve decided I’m just too old for, see also bubble tea and Sally Rooney novels) but I believe there is a lot of chat on BookTok about backlist titles. So why doesn’t this translate to library borrowing behaviour and a subsequent nuanced policy?

I have no answers, only theories. Is it down to money and a tightening of funds for libraries over the last 14 years? New book buying is an easy cut to make when faced with other sacrifices by local authorities. And if there’s a period where you’ve not bought new books, people won’t borrow them, you can’t do any displays about them, you have the same tired stock you had for a while and that drops off too. Does a tightening of funds mean that their backlist selection cannot be as extensive as they’d like? What constitutes a classic that libraries would consider stocking? Is there a gap while people dither if a title is a flash in the pan or a genuine modern classic? Or are we as a book borrowing public just out to get access to the hot new thing without paying for it?

Backlist is one of the things that can keep a writer going. Every so often publishers rejacket the backlist in an attempt to freshen them up and attract new readers who haven’t got round to reading them yet. A new book only gets a short amount of time to make an impact before it loses its new books sheen and it, too, becomes backlist. Doing some more research, the huge companies that dominate both publishing and bookselling these days may have had an impact. By pushing new titles constantly and relying on algorithms to make recommendations, the backlist gets squeezed. Bearing in mind a title is considered backlist after just a year from publication, and considering unless it’s a massive immediate hit, it will soon get moved from the front tables before that year is up. The marketing budgets are small, onus is on authors to constantly promote and talk about their books and translate that into sales. Seth Godin, author of many books, describes his backlist as ‘the books that make you money long after you’ve forgotten the pain of writing them.’ So the author promotion of these titles will inevitably drop off too.

Essentially, I think it’s because we’re busy. In person browsing shifts backlist, whether in libraries or in bookshops. And if libraries are being closed down or bookshops are constantly pushing new books and have space issues, who has that kind of time? You grab a title from your online bookseller and their algorithm has a feeble attempt at selling you something else but that will be a bit off from what you actually want and you’re safe to ignore it and go on with your day.

Speaking personally, there’s nothing I like more than to ‘discover’ a writer whose books are already there, just sitting waiting for me to read them. What joy there is in finding an author whose heavily promoted book is fabulous and then you realise there’s at least seven other books of her they can go off and read immediately. And a library is the best place to discover other writers, physical copies you can flick through, no pressure to buy anything, just a room full of possibilities. And some of them should really be over five years old.