Each summer, the University of St. Thomas library curates a summer reading list compiled of recommendations from its staff and student workers. I don’t know about you, but I trust a group of people who spend their days around books to pick out high-quality, popular but well-written materials worth reading.
But the books on the list are leisure books, meaning most of them can’t actually be found at the university libraries, which currently focus on stocking only academic books and research materials.
St. Thomas libraries shut down the only leisure reading areas they had in 2023. The library blog posted that they “regret to announce the Leisure Reading Collections at the St. Paul O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library and the downtown, Minneapolis Keffer Library are being retired.” These collections started in 2008 and provided fiction and nonfiction books to the St. Thomas community.
In that same report, the library blog provided two alternative resources for finding leisure books, neither of which are as convenient as directly putting leisure books in the library.
The first option is using public libraries. The library blog states that people with a permanent Twin Cities residence can sign up for cards with the St. Paul public libraries, the Hennepin County libraries or the Ramsey County libraries.
The problem is, this excludes many people on the St. Thomas campuses. All first- and second-year students are required to live on campus, and many upper-division students choose to as well, including students from 104 countries and 48 states. Living on campus does not count as a permanent Minnesota residence, excluding these students from applying for a free public library card.
The St. Paul Public Library website says that residents of Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wisconsin can purchase a library card for $60 per year.
Though I love supporting libraries, I don’t want to pay an annual fee for a library card that I would likely only use a few times during the school year. I am from one of the states listed above and I technically reside in Minnesota now, because I am in student housing.
To obtain a library card from the St. Paul Public Library, people must provide a current photo ID and documents that prove their name, date of birth, and current address. Out-of-state students can do this by showing the library a piece of mail sent to their current on-campus or other St. Paul residence.
Though this isn’t by any means a difficult process, it would be a lot easier if St. Thomas already had leisure books that students could read so they wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of obtaining a library card and traveling to an off-campus facility.
The other option that the St. Thomas library blog suggested was creating a Libby account, though this requires holding another valid library card.
I have a library card from my hometown, so I am able to use the Libby app, but its only options are e-books and audiobooks. I love using my Kindle on trips and whenever I don’t feel like spending up to $20 on physical books, but I prefer a real, paper book over electronics any day.
Plus, when I want to read a popular book, I have to wait while others finish reading it. Just like with a print book, libraries buy individual digital copies, and publishers require that each copy is only loaned to one person at a time so that authors, narrators and other creators are paid fairly, according to Libby.
It’s not reasonable that a library would buy dozens of copies of one book, but it is annoying that Libby users must wait for their digital books.
One alternative the library blog site neglected to mention is their Interlibrary loan option. I’ve used this quite a bit for research materials, particularly online ones, because someone is always on hand, ready to email over a scanned document from another library.
People can request physical books, too, including leisure reading materials, which can be delivered to one of the St. Thomas libraries.
St. Thomas suggests that materials will arrive at the library within three to seven business days, but because the Interlibrary loan program is made up of thousands of libraries worldwide, it’s hard to know when the book will be available.
I was also told that the fourth floor of O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library has an American literature section, so I went to check it out myself. Though I am an English major, I certainly don’t consider Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson to be leisure reading, especially when I am looking for something to read outside of class.
Evidently, utilizing the Interlibrary loan and getting a public library card are the easiest options for St. Thomas students to access print leisure books, but having them on campus would be a much better way to let people continue reading as much as they choose, whenever they choose to. All types of books should always be accessible, even for college students who just want a break from their readings for class.
Bridget Schmid can be reached at schm1520@stthomas.edu.
