Finding The Perfect Books for Your Patrons
Gayle’s trip to ULS (see the post on her blog), reminds me that I am getting behind in my April-May ULS (United Library Services) order.
Every two months, we are sent a variety of catalogues with book titles that we can order from. We can also order online, which I do but I also like to see the hard copy as I search.
We have hundreds of choices and sometimes it’s quite challenging to know what to order. It’s fun, but it’s also a gamble at times. We do belong to a regional library system and we share our resources with dozens of libraries, so we don’t have to purchase everything, but our patrons do expect us to have certain books.
So every couple of months, we do the “yes/no” thing. Thankfully, we can say yes to many of the popular books and yes to the occasional obscure title, but sometimes I just have to be tough and say no.
A few years ago, when I first started here I conducted a patron interest survey. It really helped me to prioritize my purchases based on the needs of the community. I highly recommend this as a way to help determine purchases. There are many helpful resources online.
April 17, 2007 at 9:49 pm
I agree, we don’t have unlimited budgets and we can’t please everyone. I find children’s books easier to purchase when I can hold them in my hand. Adults will ask for thier favourite authors, but children (even older ones) usually don’t. The book buying trip is a great! I will be going again.
April 18, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I love the new look Joanne – very clean and professional looking.
Do you have an example of what that patron interest survey looked like? Sounds like a great idea resource. I wonder if repeating that kind of survey every few years wouldn’t be helpful?
April 18, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Definitely it’s a good idea to do this survey every few years. Patrons’ interests change, people move in to or leave the community, trends shift. So it’s good to take a pulse of your patrons’ reading tastes and desires. It’s nearing the time for us to do this survey. If I find it on my computer, I’ll send you a copy James.