Consider Collecting Print Literary Magazines

I have been in libraries long enough to remember our large print magazine collections. I remember having them in a "reading room" type ares. And, I remember patrons coming specifically to read the latest issues of the most popular magazines, or waiting for the day the issues went from in library only use to check out. Titles like The New Yorker and The Atlantic were among the most popular with our fiction readers as well, and I had patrons who knew exactly when an issue was made available for checkout. 

As our magazine collections have moved online (OverDrive has finally made them accessible in the easiest way), there are still readers who enjoy reading short fiction in print. 

Today, I would like to argue for those of you who work with leisure readers to consider looking into adding some print literary magazine to you fiction collections--  not magazine collections. There are still some great literary journals out there, introducing new voices, printing stories by well known writers, and continuing to make the format relevant to a larger swath of leisure readers.

Now, I realize this is outside the norm of how we shelve our collections. Normally you would not have a literary magazine interfiled with fiction, but I would argue that if we have any of the "Best American" anthologies in our fiction collection, shelved by title of the series-- and we all do-- then we can also add literary magazines.

You will get push back just because this is not how regularly do things. This can be combatted with the argument above (comparing these two this "best of" anthologies) and by explaining that since we do not have a centralized place where magazines are kept anymore, we are no longer serving these readers adequately.  

But another argument  you may come up against is the physical product's incompatibility with our fiction shelving. This is fair. My advice to that criticism is to carve out a smaller section within your collections for literary magazine, much like we did with our larger magazine collections. It could even be a small area of shelving in the middle of your fiction collection so that readers can stumble upon it when browsing. Or, if you have enough money and space, you can buy some specific shelving and give literary magazine a corner to themselves. But if none of this will work, you can also limit yourself to literary magazines like The Common, an award winning literary magazine, which comes in a bound paperback format that can fit easily on your existing shelves.

Okay, Becky, you convinced me to give this a try. Where should I start? 

Great question. I personally subscribe to The Common and Southwest Review. In the past I have subscribed to Granta and Ploughshares. These are a good general, literary fiction focused places to start. But I would also explore genre options for the more popular genres in your collections. A great way to identify those journals is to look in the credits of your genre based, "Best Fiction of the Year" anthologies. Where are those stories being published? Are there print magazine options that pop up over and over again? Add one and give it a try.

Or you can take a look at this Lit Hub article from January entitled: Some guy ranked all of the lit journals you've ever heard of (and the other ones, too). This one is helpful to a point and a little tongue in cheek, but worth a look. More useful is Lit Hub's tag for anytime they have talked about Literary Journals.

Start small and add one or two. Promote them. Put them on display, add them to staff picks, post them in your online spaces. Give them a chance to connect with potential readers, ask for feedback, and see how it goes. I would even go so far as to put a book mark in every lit magazine issue asking for feedback. Write something at the top about how this is a new addition to the collection and we'd love to hear your feedback when you return it. Leave space for them to write a response. 

Again, I suggest straying with The Common-- it is published at my alma matter, I am a subscriber, it's focus is on fiction and nonfiction, the writers come from a wide range of identities and perspectives, it is the size of a paperback, and, in the interest of full disclosure, my daughter has recently joined the staff.

If you give this a try, reach out and let me know how it went.