Abstract
In light of the place of popular fiction in world cultural history and in the context of the broader debate of “high culture versus popular culture”, this article addresses the importance of popular fiction in the academic library. The article compares the attitude of Israeli academic libraries towards popular fiction to the attitude of parallel American university and research libraries. A survey of a sample of academic curriculi and libraries in Israel suggests no established policy related to collection development and the acquisition of popular fiction. While leading American academic institutions adopt such policy, no such trends are evident in Israeli institutions. According to the polysystem theory of literature, popular fiction should have a status of its own as one of various systems within a structured whole. As such, it is a legitimate subject of literary research. Popular fiction as an interdisciplinary subject may interest researchers from different fields of study in the humanities and the social sciences. The need to establish a collection development and acquisition policy for popular fiction in order to facilitate systematic and continuous research in this field is thus indicated. This endeavour should be coordinated both regionally and nationally.
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