Reporter's Notebook: If you want your Street Lit tell Mid-Continent

By Peter Rugg in Follow That Story, Lit, Reporter's Notebook

Fri., Jun. 19 2009 @ 6:30AM

Quentin Carter, the subject of this week's feature, "Story of My Life," has made a name writing gritty tales about Kansas City informed by his own youth as a drug dealer. He's not alone either -- the rising tide of the street-lit genre is responsible for big sales and lots of demand at the Kansas City Public Library. But despite the genre's popularity, Mid-Continent Public Library is still trying to decide whether to carry the books.

"What I'm going through mentally is when you have a limited budget, is this the best that a library can present to the public," Mid-Continent director Dick Wilding says of the library's failure to aquire much street lit. "Right now we're really trying to figure out what we should be buying and what the best use of our resources are."

The library does carry some works by street-lit authors. Wilding cited Relentless Aaron as one, and Quentin Carter shows up in the library's catalog, but for the most part he says the system has avoided the genre because of its lurid nature.

"It's not just urban fiction -- some of it is erotic fiction too, that we haven't made a decision about yet," he says. "We've actually been discussing it. We're working on a collection development policy and haven't arrived at an answer yet."

Wilding says he'll be reviewing a collection policy with other library staff over the coming weeks.

So if you rely on Mid-Continent, and you really want to get your hands on copy of Triple Crown Publication's Crack Head, now's the time to let them know.