form of literature that appears to give so much pleasure to women. Othersmay spurn the books because they believe they are of poor quality. For ex-ample, Mosley, Charles & Havir (1995) have compiled a list of reasons whylibrarians have been reluctant to stock romances. A sampling is as follows:1) Romances are formula books; 2) Smart people do not read romances; 3)Romances are too sexually explicit; 4) Romances are not good books, theyare trash; 5) The covers are too steamy; 6) All romances are alike—If you’veread one, you’ve read them all.Previously hostile to romances but recently reformed, Mosley andother librarians are puzzled by the strength of the criticisms leveled atthe romance novels. Most of these criticisms could as easily be applied toother types of books that appear in libraries without benefit of controversy.For example, popular mysteries could be labeled as equally formulaic. Al-though some romances have explicit sex, many have far less than otherpopular best sellers. Mosley and her co-authors pose questions about theimposition of these cultural standards. They wonder who is to decide whatliterature is lowbrow and highbrow and even whether such decisions needto be made. They point out that Dickens wrote serialized fiction for thepopular press that has crossed the line from lowbrow to highbrow. Thisawareness of shifting values reveals the ways in which attitudes changeas the culture changes. It is worth thinking about what these attitudesmean. How do certain books and types of literature acquire cultural au-thority while this is denied to others? What is the role of the librarian? Isit to set and reinforce standards or to provide what readers want? Whathappens to the reader when these types of standards are imposed? Arebooks harmful to readers? Can multiple standards co-exist or will somereaders come to feel that they have made inferior choices and thus feelmarginalized?Scholarly interest in the legitimacy of the romance novel received abig stimulus from the 1984 publication ofReading the Romanceby JaniceRadway. Her research followed a new approach, focusing on the readingexperiences of a group of dedicated readers. Previous analyses of the ro-mance reading experience had not been based on the reactions of thesehabitual readers. Her group of readers found the books and the readingof them to be extremely positive in their lives. They saw themselves aseducating themselves through the history, diverse locales and vocabularyin the books. They believed the fact that they had chosen reading as theirleisure time activity was positively coded in our society. At the same time,these readers described the escape value of the romance: emotionally, thisreading provided escape from the rigors of caring for others. Radway wasinterested in what aspects of the content appealed to readers. In analyz-ing the plots, she found an interesting phenomenon. While the men were