On Monday Sarah over at Smart Bitches discussed how strange it was that the recent USA Today article about the growing appeal of erotic romance failed to mention Ellora's Cave. Strange? Absolutely. But this article is not the only place where Ellora's Cave is missing. Don't believe me? Check your local library. Unless you are fortunate enough to be near one of only a handful of libraries across the country, you won't have access the books published by Ellora's Cave. If your library does have EC in its collection chances are it is only a few titles. There's only one library I could find that had a decent (albeit not huge) selection of EC titles, and that was the Joliet Public Library in Joliet, IL.

How do I know this? I did the research my friends. Last weekend I spent some time on WorldCat seeing what EC titles I could find listed there. To start I used the list EC has on their website of all the titles they currently have in print. I took the ISBNs listed there and searched for each one in WorldCat. Of the 340 titles EC listed as being in print, I was able to find only 96 of them. I found 5 other EC books, but they were out of print. You can see a title by title breakdown of my research here. On the far right hand side of the chart I noted the number of libraries that have each book. The highest number of libraries that carried one title was 11. The majority of titles were owned by far fewer libraries.

The lack of EC titles in libraries really bothered me, so I did what I always do when I have a question that my mind cannot wrap itself around. I went to Joan, our head of circulation and my personal font of information. When asked why she thought libraries were not adding EC to their collection, Joan had one simple answer for me, "Their patrons aren't interested in reading it."

I can maybe believe that the patrons in my community wouldn't be interested in reading books from EC (although I doubt it), but I have a hard time believing that there isn't a group of readers somewhere in this entire country that wished their library offered EC titles. To believe that seems shortsighted and naive. Erotic romance is hugely popular right now, and I've read/heard from booksellers that EC titles fly off their shelves. If it is such a hit with readers, why aren't libraries adding these books to their collections?

I looked around the Internet to see if I could find any discussion about EC in libraries, and discovered this post over at TeleRead. While the post itself looks at the place of erotic eBooks in libraries and not print erotica, it does have an interesting quotation from Rochelle Hartman, an ALA"

"I think you'll find widely varying policies at different libraries regarding erotica. It's a mixed and contentious bag at many libraries. I think the main difference between titles pushed by publishers like Ellora's Cave and more "mainstream" fiction is purely in the marketing. I think you could pull a significant number of mainstream, high-selling titles and find content every bit as spicy as what you get in smaller press titles. The smaller press are just more honest in labeling their content..."

Is this the answer? Poor marketing? That answer seems too pat to me. As someone who is partially responsible for the fiction that is purchased by my library, I can tell you why I have been hesitant to buy EC in the past. Initially the cover art was too risque for my community, but that has gotten better and isn't as big of a concern as it once was. For me the major stumbling block has been the fact that EC does not do simultaneous release for its titles. I'm hesitant to get my readers started on a series knowing that parts one and two are in print, but parts three and four are currently only available as eBooks. For me even that is changing. My goal for the next budget year is to work some EC into my library's collection. I think I might even try to sneak a few titles in now just to see how they circulate. Who knows? Maybe I'll find out that I am wrong and that my readers aren't interested in these books. Although I doubt that.

Out of curiosity, what do you readers out there think? Do you wish your libraries were collecting EC?

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