Libraries

In March 1999, at the BYU Forum: Life, the Universe, and Everything, RFF Utah collected cases of books to donate to a new Utah county library. That was our first project of this nature.

Since then, RFF Utah had a couple of panels at CONduit 9, where we discussed, among other things, the difficulty of maintaining in our school libraries material that students can actually relate to.

The difficulty seems to run in three veins. First is the fact that kids are having to deal with a world that is most definitely not the world that existed twenty years ago. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is what life in school is like these days - even here in Utah! Offer the kids Heinlein's The Rolling Stones, or even Farmer in the Sky, and chances are they won't take another look at science fiction.

Second is that materials in school libraries must be age appropriate. That puts a serious limit on most science fiction being written. While many authors manage to write gripping science fiction without "sex on page 74," just as many include fairly graphic material. (It isn't necessarily gratuitous, but that isn't going to matter to the guardians of our morality.)

Third is that reading levels in science fiction vary wildy. There are books that are being written for specific age levels, but most mainstream science fiction authors do not write with a particular attention to vocabulary size or sentence complexity.

With that in mind it is the aim of RFF Utah to identify titles that are appropriate for various age groups and reading levels. (Here are several lists put together by people participating in a nationwide Reading for the Future discussion.) RFF Utah accepts donations of new books for Utah schools, and we endeavor to work with educators, librarians, and parents, to ensure that these books go where they are needed - and wanted.