Collection Reflection

The Kindle-Overdrive beta testing news spread across the web yesterday like wildfire.  You can read about it here or here or here The Harris poll on E-reader use .  More ebook stats?  Yes, please.  Just ahead of Banned Books Week, which starts on Saturday,  B&N profiles a few "Classics Some People Still Love to Hate" The National Book Festival is this weekend and if you can't make it, C-Span has got you covered . ALA & AAP cage match to discuss ebooks .  Probably not in an actual cage..... 

So, when I started making notes for the LJ presentation next month, of course I wrote down WAY more than I have time to use in 10 minutes. I think (I hope?) I used the best stuff for the slides, but no reason why we can't discuss the same things here too, right? Of course there isn't. I was thinking about permanence and the digital collection and how we shouldn't think of buying into this format (whatever format we might be using) as an endpoint. Who knows what might happen in the future, right? But this isn't an idea that is unique to downloadable audio/ebooks! How many cassettes (audio AND video) did we have to replace with the next format? Before cassettes, many libraries had records. There was probably some crazy library out there that circulated 8-tracks (oh please, fess up, I'm dying to know who you are!). Publishing companies would love for libraries to believe we're buying this digital format and it will last forever, but we all know that isn't li...

I was denewing books in the 800s recently, which gives me the opportunity to see how books on the "New" shelf have circulated in the 10-12 months between when they're processed and when they're put in the general collection. These books are featured in a very public area and theoretically have a greater chance of being noticed by patrons and checked out. I've been aware for a while now that books of poetry, while dear to my heart, don't enjoy much popularity at my library, even though they are featured on displays (as for National Poetry Month) and given the same time as other books in the New section. Most of the poetry collections I denewed the other day had circulated, but sometimes as little as one time. Is one circulation a victory? If a book costs a certain amount (after a library discount), and then we add the cost of paying people to process and shelve it, does one circulation make its purchase worthwhile? At what point does the balance swing in fa...

As a follow-up to my post about statistics last week, I thought I would take a closer look at one of my nonfiction sections to demonstrate the kind of information that a report can yield. The Dewey range from 800 through 829 was my first assignment at this library; it covers American and English literature (poetry, essays, speeches, criticism, how-to, humor, drama). It's a grab-bag of exciting treasures, including Chaucer, guides to writing your first screenplay, the collected poems of Maya Angelou, collections of erotica, Dave Barry, Shakespeare, works about (but not by) Jane Austen, and Beowulf . At my library, this part of the collection includes nearly 12,000 items, and they are all under my jurisdiction. I was originally assigned collection development of this section because of my Master's degree in English literature, which at least provided me with some background in the area. Over the years, I've gotten familiar with the collection and what's popular. And, I c...

As usual, I need to weed my parts of the nonfiction collection. I could weed based on condition, which would allow me to clear a little space by pulling books off the shelf that clearly shouldn't be there because they're falling apart, or hideously ugly, or both. But what I really need is to make enough space on the shelves for the new books I've been buying over the past (cough) undisclosed period of time since I last really weeded, which means that I have to get serious. For that, I want a report. I suspect that I care about statistics more than a lot of my colleagues. We do use statistics regularly during the course of our jobs; as reference librarians, we keep a daily record of our interactions with patrons, rather than recording stats once a month or once a year and extrapolating. Even so, I don't think many of my co-workers run reports as regularly as I do or are as familiar with the reporting software. Does this make me a stat-crazed librarian? I'm ...

Here are a few staff questions sent to me via email about all things ebooks. I thought it might be interesting enough to share, although it also might be a little too insider baseball for outside our system interest. I'll know by your clicks which is correct. Are there lots of publishers that don't publish ebook or eaudio format? I'm not sure if there are publishers who don't publish in electronic format, but there are publishers who don't sell that format to libraries. Of the "big six" publishers (link to names and descriptions here ) Macmillan and Simon & Schuster (and their imprints) are not available to libraries through Overdrive. We stopped buying Harpercollins titles when they went to the 26 circ self destruction model. Just today, I came across a book that is $26.00 in print and $78.00 (!!!) in ebook. So, just because a publisher is "willing" to sell to libraries doesn't always mean that is a good thing. Does t...

Good Morning, Reflectors! I've had one or two people ask how we hear about books (and by extension, dvds, cds, etc) to add to the collection. There are a variety of ways. Here are a few: Vendor catalogs: Baker & Taylor Forecast : Comes out every month and covers fiction and non-fiction titles. Sometimes audio and large print as well. Divided into HC, trade pb and mass market, and then divided by category/genre. The ads are just as important as the actual listings. Every once in awhile, you might find an interesting author interview or article as well. Carries titles usually a month or so in advance of publication. Absolutely wonderful for keeping up with mass market series. Not so hot on smaller press or self published items. Ingram Advance : I wish I could provide a link, but the majority of things linkable from their site are so old they aren't worth the trouble. BUT, they are very good at listing (and stocking) small press and/or self published t...