Introduction Listening to patrons' ideas for collection development is not a new practice, but it often focuses on books that students need for research or for class rather than their personal interests. An analysis of our text message service and the students' demand for popular literature spurred the idea to expand a small set of leased popular reading materials into a popular reading collection at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) and to integrate those readings into curricula and the academic setting in a meaningful way. "Listening" to what students asked for via text messages, we found that a large percentage of questions inquired about current, popular books and that we were largely unable to fill these requests without Interlibrary Loan. With this in mind, we applied for and were awarded a Back 2 Books grant from the Illinois State Library and Secretary of State for the purpose of increasing students' access to print materials for both pleasure and informative reading, as well as to encourage reading through engaging activities.~1
展开▼
