Abstract
Sport biographies and autobiographies are popular among the general public and a prominent feature of the sport sections of Australian bookshops and libraries. This chapter reflects on the popularity of this genre, and particularly on the overarching messages that are communicated through the variety of, and display methods for, these books in such spaces. Drawing upon our professional experience, academic discourse on library management and book publishing, and data taken from an informal survey of bookshops and libraries in Brisbane (Queensland, Australia), we consider how, why, and what the composition of sport shelves represent in terms of sport within society today. The continued obfuscation of women athletes is noted, as are some of the broader commercial and institutional pressures that impact the ways in which bookshops and libraries operate. We conclude this chapter by contemplating the agency that book consumers might exercise over bookshelves, particularly via social media hashtags such as #sportshelfie.
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Kirby, K., Clarke, A. (2023). #Sportshelfie: Representation in the Sport Section of Australian Bookshops and Libraries. In: McGowan, L., Symons, K. (eds) Intersections of Sport and Society in Creative Writing. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5585-5_2
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