Reporter’s Notebook: If you want your Street Lit tell Mid-Continent

Quentin Carter, the subject of this week’s feature, “Story of My Life,” has made a name writing gritty tales about Kansas City informed by his own youth as a drug dealer. He’s not alone either — the rising tide of the street-lit genre is responsible for big sales and lots of demand at the Kansas City Public Library. But despite the genre’s popularity, Mid-Continent Public Library is still trying to decide whether to carry the books.

“What I’m going through mentally is when you have a limited budget, is this the best that a library can present to the public,” Mid-Continent director Dick Wilding says of the library’s failure to aquire much street lit. “Right now we’re really trying to figure out what we should be buying and what the best use of our resources are.”