Collection Reflection

Can we talk, for a minute, about things that aren't books? Don't get me wrong, I love books. I do. I always have. And, honestly, I can't even imagine that a day will come when I will disavow them. Not even for a million dollars. Not even for ten mill.....well, let's not go quite THAT far. But, the point remains, I love books so this is not even close to an anti-book screed. And, I understand that books and literacy are, and have been, the cornerstone of libraries. That's wonderful. Encouraging literacy, and a love of reading, is a fantastic thing to be associated with your organization/profession. I can't think of many people who would argue against these things, and it makes for wonderful, heart warming stories to share with people who hold the purse strings. But, libraries have been circulating things OTHER than books for a long time. In fact, I don't know that I can remember a time when libraries only had books. Even the tiny library in my hometown...

So, Anna tells me that someone came to the blog looking for audiobook publishers who were similar to GraphicAudio in style.  I talked about my love for GraphicAudio in May 2011 , and it is still one of our most popular posts. I hope that translated into lots of new customers, because I really do love their stuff (and I want them to stay in business!) But, here is another good place to find similar audiobooks: Big Finish.  Big Finish is a British production company that makes audio productions similar to what you will find at GraphicAudio: multiple cast members, great sound effects, and high enjoyment. They specialize in SF/F based on tv shows, so expect to find Dr. Who , Stargate , Highlander , along with Big Finish Classics , drama, comedy and many other series. I bought Stargate for the library, just to see how they would do, and they've done pretty well. Because those are one disc, and are packaged in DVD type cases, they often were missed by the patrons looking f...

Last year, I volunteered to take over ordering the young adult video games for my library. Unlike the rest of my collection development duties, which are focused on materials at the central library (we also have nine branches), the games are a citywide collection. Although they are all located at one branch for security reasons--they kept wandering off when they were stored here--they can be requested by patrons anywhere in the region. 1 I've done a couple of orders over the past year or so since I became responsible for this area, but hadn't really taken a close look at the numbers until recently. I ran a report (of course) and tried to break down what I was seeing in ways that would be useful for my collection decisions going forward. This is also the only non-print collection that I am responsible for, and boy are the numbers different from what I'm used to seeing, especially in comparison with the nonfiction collection! The most prominent statistic was probably the ...

Here at Collection Reflection, we're aware that we spend a lot of time talking about ebooks and weeding and EBOOKS , and we're going to start featuring some guest posts on topics outside of our immediate realm of expertise. One of these days, we might actually find someone to talk about something other than public libraries! Today's post comes from one of Robin's colleagues on the topic of collection development and audio CDs and DVDs. -- Hey Chicken Little, the sky is still up there. I mean, that acorn that fell on your head has fallen down, but there’s still plenty of sky. As a music and film librarian, I get asked almost daily about “when are we going to stop carrying discs?” My answer is always, “when people stop checking them out.” Which I’m guessing will be for a while, since my circulation numbers are still healthy and iTunes is over a decade old. Let’s face it, we only got rid of our VHS collection last year--and the few that could still play were still g...