Mar. 9, 2010 at 8:14pm Buying the Materials You Check Out....How do we Do It?

How We Buy.

I had a customer ask me if we buy each item that our customers request.  We used to buy most of what was requested........but that changes this year due to our budget cut.  Each librarian on our staff is responsible for a specific area of the collection.  For example, I buy audiobooks, which is one of the most expensive single items we purchase.  Each unabridged book can cost anywhere from $60-$120 dollars each.  This is a perfect example of why your public library provides you with a GREAT return on investment, since most of us can't afford to buy these expensive books.

This year each selector will carefully review the requests based on the following criteria:

1.  How expensive is it?

2.  Is it either really new, do we have a gap in our collection that the item would fill, or is the item a "classic"?

3.  Is it available at another library, where we can either send our customer or borrow the item for them.

4.  Is the review of the item a good one, or did the book, DVD or CD win an award?

Unfortunately, our customers will be waiting longer for their materials, since we have to reduce the numbers of copies of books we purchase.   And we will not be buying all the DVDs we had been buying...not enough dollars to go around.

That said, we do carefully think about what we add to our collection, and now, we think even harder, since the selection really counts this year.