Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Libraries know who their customers are.
And what thosse customers want.
With their budets under constant pressure, they know they need to please.
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Do they need to please or do they want to please? Is this general library policy or individual?
I am all in favour of libraries carrying lots and lots popular fiction, and in my experience this was not always the case.
many libraries today lease best selling paper books at a fairly steep price to please their patrons. Cheaper than buying, but not much. I was told by one head librarian that the big advantage was that they did not have to deal with getting rid of or storing the books when their popularity waned. They could in most cases destroy them.
I question the wisdom of this. Buying 90 copies of a prospective bestseller because there are 500 patrons on the waiting list will please at least 90 and perhaps 200.The rest will still be annoyed if they were going to be annoyed to start out with, and if the list reaches 2000 do they then buy several hundred more? I have waited months for a paper book on hold and did not boycott the library, write my city councillor or even complain to my 87 year old mother. I've waited weeks to receive a book I ordered from a bookstore.
If libraries are actually seen as trying to supply books on demand at no perceived price to their patrons, no wonder publishing paranoia.
I would like everybody to have everything they could possibly desire before they even know they desire it, but as that is unlikely, I would like to see library policy geared to building a varied collection of works appealing to a wide variety of tastes. Not geared to getting the latest $9.99 best seller into the hands of the most people possible before they go onto another fad or desire.
Helen