Comments on: Projects and rejects 4 – The real scoop on the books

By: GeekChic

GeekChic — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:26:22 +0000

At my previous place of work in Texas, I faced the same issue that Terry faced. Whichever major vendor won the state or county bid was our preferred vendor and we had to justify *each item* we wanted to purchase some other way. It was even worse if the vendor didn’t take purchase orders.

This is not the sole fault of the library – but of the parent body that governs the library. I know I spent many hours trying to explain to my city masters why we couldn’t always find things at B&T or Ingram – but that policy is still in place.

By: walt

walt — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:51:51 +0000

I don’t know whether Ingram picks up CreateSpace books (CreateSpace is part of Amazon). To add Ingram possible-distribution to a Lulu book is pretty expensive if there’s no assured outcome, which is why I didn’t do it.

Admittedly, this is an issue…but it’s equally an issue for Balanced Libraries (one reason my “success goal” is 300 copies over two years, not 1,200 copies over two years).

I guess this does raise the more general question–one Tim Spalding was pushing–of whether libraries should be going outside their regular channels to capture more of the so-called long tail. I don’t think these books are poster children for that particular question; there are better candidates.

By: Terry

Terry — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:25:57 +0000

I don’t know if we’re like other libraries, but it is extremely difficult for us to purchase books which aren’t carried by B&T or Ingram.