Integrating Pop Culture into the Academic Library

Book excerpt: From Library Journal: "A comprehensive book, providing information on the rationale for connecting pop culture to library services and offering a range of projects to get students into the library." Integrating Pop Culture into the Academic Library explores how popular culture is used in academic libraries for collections, instruction, and programming. This book describes the foundational basis for using popular culture and discusses how it ignites conversations between librarians and students, making not only the information relatable, but the library staff, as well. The use of popular culture in the library setting acknowledges the importance of students’ interests and how these interests can be used to understand their information needs in unique and interesting ways. By integrating popular culture into library collections, instruction, and programming, librarians present research and discovery in ways that connect with students and the broader community. This book demonstrates that academic libraries using popular culture find it to be an effective tool, both for instruction and programming. The editors are librarians who utilize popular culture in various ways to provide instruction and reinforce information literacy concepts in their own practice. Readers will find chapters written by a variety of authors from different types of academic libraries, including community colleges, comprehensive universities, research universities, and law schools. These unique perspectives offer readers different ways of thinking about how librarians can incorporate students’ interests in popular culture to promote the mission of the library. In addition to well-known examples such as Hamilton: The Musical, Pokémon, Harry Potter, Black Panther, and Barbie, readers will also encounter lesser-known library applications of popular culture, including cartoneras, zines, fantasy maps, gaming collectives, and paranormal walking tours. All of these examples highlight the multiple way libraries leverage popular culture to expand their reach and identity with students and the community at-large.