How Books End Up in the Library

Hahaha! I tell my friends stories about stuff that happens in the library.

They tell me I should write a book.

I ask if they would buy it.

They say they would borrow it from the library.
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They do not know how things work in the library. They assume every book written will eventually be found in a library, the library, THEIR library.

If that's the case, why do we get calls every week from publishers and authors? (And by the way, shouldn't those publishers know librarians need to see review copies? Man up and send us the book!)

We have to decide if the books are fit for our patrons. Believe me, there are some that are not.

Why? Well, first of all, we do have a budget. For the fiscal year for our section, it's in the five figures.

The LOW five figures. So the books need to fit the budget.

They need to fit the clientele. We need to look at books the patrons request, too. We just can't buy them all.

Are all books well-written? No. We, the librarians decide that. We ask questions like: is it age-appropriate? If there are illustrations, are they of good quality and appealing to children or young adults or adults? Can we follow the story? Is the book well-made? Can it hold up to a dozen or two dozen checkouts? Do we have something already in our collection as good or better? Does it fill a need in the library?

I'm not even going to go into the details of buying ebooks!

This started out to be a post on what I'm reading. I'll get to that another time.

Do you even go to the library?