by Sherrie DeMartino
Did you ever wonder how the library purchases the books that are in our collection? What do you do if there’s a book that you would like to read and you don’t see it in our catalog? All of the library’s books (children’s, young adult, adult regular print, and adult large print) are ordered through a company called Ingram Content Group, which is an American service provider to the book publishing industry that is based in La Vergne, Tennessee. Ingram has the industry’s largest active book inventory, with access to 7.5 million titles. The markets they serve include booksellers, librarians, educators, and specialty retailers.
The first thing that we consider when purchasing books is patron requests. If the library system doesn’t own a book that you would like to read, you can request to borrow it from another library system (Interlibrary Loan), or if it’s a newer book, you can fill out a purchase request to see if we would consider purchasing it for our collection. Both the Interlibrary Loan and Purchase request forms are located on our website (www.adamslibrary.org) under the services tab. We will try to purchase the item if it is available on Ingram and if the reviews are favorable.
The second step is to look at Ingram’s curated lists. Ingram provides lists of fiction and nonfiction books, organized by release date, of all of the new upcoming titles. We go through this list and look for bestselling authors first. After those are added to our order list, we look up other titles on websites such as amazon.com and in book review magazines to see which books have good reviews and might have a wide crowd appeal. Sometimes it’s tricky to decide how many copies of a title to order. We regularly monitor the number of holds on a popular new release and will order another copy if it is in high demand.
Last but certainly not least, the lists of books to order are then sent to our Technical Services department in the Gettysburg branch. The order is placed through Ingram, and the books are delivered to Technical Services, where they are cataloged and barcoded, covered, and distributed to the six branches in our library system. If you had requested a book, a hold will have been placed on that title for you and will be sent to your branch for you to pick up.
So, if there’s a specific book that you would like to read, stop in at your local branch or check out our website at www.adamslibrary.org. Hope to see you soon!
Sherrie DeMartino is Branch Manager of the Carroll Valley Library.