Recreational Reading in Academic Browsing Rooms: Resources for Readers' Advisory

Browsing rooms are those alluring spaces in the college or university library where the reader may shut out the flood and clamor of information. Here the imagination and personal interests of the reader are nurtured. Today's browsing rooms are vestiges of the 1920s and 1930s, developed in an era when academic libraries vigorously promoted recreational reading interests of students. As repositories of works chosen from the main collection for their ability to uplift, relax, and stimulate the student reader, the browsing collection in the college library of the 1930s was itself the embodiment of readers' advisory, that Cadillac of public library services.