What’s So Special about Appeal? Drawing the Aesthetic/Nonaesthetic Distinction in Readers’ Advisory

TY - JOUR

T1 - What’s So Special about Appeal? Drawing the Aesthetic/Nonaesthetic Distinction in Readers’ Advisory

AU - Lawrence, E. E.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The University of Chicago.

PY - 2022/10

Y1 - 2022/10

N2 - The concept of appeal functions as a central tool in the practice of contemporary readers’ advisory (RA). “Appeal terminology” has been used systematically to enhance plot descriptions and bibliographic records since Joyce Saricks and Nancy Brown first introduced the concept in 1989. However, despite its prevalence in RA education and service, appeal has been criticized for its lack of conceptual specificity; an important objection is that we cannot reliably distinguish appeal terms from subject headings and genre categories. In contrast, I believe that there is a defensible distinction between Saricks and Brown’s original account of appeal and other bibliographic descriptors, one that licenses the former’s privileged position in RA practice. To demonstrate this, I provide a rehabilitative account of the appeal/not-appeal distinction, which I understand as tracking the delineation between aesthetic and nonaesthetic features of literary works of art, respectively.

AB - The concept of appeal functions as a central tool in the practice of contemporary readers’ advisory (RA). “Appeal terminology” has been used systematically to enhance plot descriptions and bibliographic records since Joyce Saricks and Nancy Brown first introduced the concept in 1989. However, despite its prevalence in RA education and service, appeal has been criticized for its lack of conceptual specificity; an important objection is that we cannot reliably distinguish appeal terms from subject headings and genre categories. In contrast, I believe that there is a defensible distinction between Saricks and Brown’s original account of appeal and other bibliographic descriptors, one that licenses the former’s privileged position in RA practice. To demonstrate this, I provide a rehabilitative account of the appeal/not-appeal distinction, which I understand as tracking the delineation between aesthetic and nonaesthetic features of literary works of art, respectively.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85140093146

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85140093146#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1086/721392

DO - 10.1086/721392

M3 - Article

SN - 0024-2519

VL - 92

SP - 405

EP - 418

JO - Library Quarterly

JF - Library Quarterly

IS - 4

ER -