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Show LBS Booh At Idbrarv By TOM BLSSELBERG FARM1NGTON -- If you're looking for an LDS book and can't find it, ask before giving up! THAT'S THE advise of Davis County Library's Luc-retia Luc-retia Watkins, research specialist spe-cialist at the main library in Farmington, who notes often a book actually is available at one of the three libraries but may be checked out or at another branch. In a report to the five-member five-member board of directors, she notes the collection is nearly 50 percent "Mormon" doctrine-related in the 289.3 Dewey Decimal catalog section, sec-tion, when compared with materials about other denominations. denomi-nations. That doesn't include the thousands of books that refer re-fer to a religion such as novels or biographies. TWO YEARS age the book selection policy was liberalized liberal-ized allowing for purchase of more religious books brought on after some board members and others questioned a perceived per-ceived dearth of LDS books in a county that is about 70 percent per-cent Mormon. "I think we've been buying a vast majority of the requests," re-quests," Library Director Jeanne Layton said, indicating the collection has been "increased "in-creased significantly." MS. WATKINS noted that in the California city where she had previously lived, while only about eight-ten percent of the population was LDS, more Mormon books were stocked proportionately than would represent the 65 percent Roman Ro-man Catholic, for example. She said that some religions are well represented proportionately propor-tionately while others are not in the Davis library, emphasizing emphasiz-ing it sometimes is difficult to find items "of general interest." in-terest." adding some "very random donations" have been received of religious books. HER REPORT was brought on by a woman lamenting what she thought was a small LDS collection after moving from Erie, a city of about 120.000 in northwestern Pennsylvania, with a metropolitan area roughly tw ice the size of Davis County. "They're (library) considerably consider-ably larger." Ms. Layton said. "They have 33 professionals" while Davis has less than that number on the total staff, professional pro-fessional or not. "Their hook budget is four times Davis County's and they have nearly 500.000 volumes" compared to under 200.000 in Davis. OFTEN PATRONS will expect ex-pect to find all the LDS books in one area. Ms. Watkins said, being accustomed to a bookstore-type setup. Books on homemaking such as might be recommended from the Relief Society will be in the sciences area while biographies would be in the 920's and fiction novels could be in the children's, chil-dren's, youth or adult sections. sec-tions. "Quite often people don't ask" when they can't find a book and that could solve a lot of their problems if they would consult staff, she explained, indicating that often when a book isn't stocked but is desired de-sired it is ordered. She showed the board a stack of about a dozen volumes recently received re-ceived covering everything from doctrine to Mormon history. "THE MAIN library is more likely to have unusual books and we may have duplicates" on many items, such as novels. Ms. Layton said. On top of that, the library's always glad to accept donations dona-tions with County Com. Glen Saunders, also a board member, mem-ber, noting often a book is purchased pur-chased for a personal library, read once and then laid aside. DUPLICATE copies oi many titles would be advantageous advan-tageous because of their popularity, popu-larity, the same as with many Dr. Seuss books. Ms. W atkins added. Robert Arbuckle. a board member from Centerville who had rasied concerns about the collection several years ago. said after the report, "it sounds good to me." |