Originally Posted by
Jane Quilter
Well my library is not always willing to take books. I checked out a "classic" book, one that is required reading in high school (ie, not some dime store novel) . Anyway, I left it out in the rain, and ruined it. So I went and bought a brand new copy of the book, and took it to the library, with my apology. Needless to say, the librarian was not happy, she explained all books had to be approved, and selected by a committee. (wait, wasn't this classic already approved and selected????). It seems each new printing by a publisher makes a new barcode number, and now they don't match. She went on and on. and to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what I was suppose to do. I think I was suppose to to and say it was "lost", pay the $15.00 lost fee, and let the library committee buy the new one. (the new book was only $6.95)....but it would not be there and available when the high school kids needed it. I can't figure it out, but I do know they don't want any donated books that way. Books that are "donated" are sold at a "book fair" in the parking lot for cash, and the cash goes to the library committee, who selects and buys only "approved books". Just wanted to share.
I just wanted to add that there may be a lot of behind the scene work at the book fair you may be unaware of. I was the chair of our local library's sale of donated books. As the books were brought in for donation they were sorted by library staff, any that were needed and could be added to library shelves were set aside. Staff had to manually add them to the collection, which does take time, and time equals money....so they were particular about which ones to add, but I know that many were set aside every year and added to the library shelves. Also, the money from our sale paid for many things besides books. Public libraries rely on government funding, which comes with many strings attached on how it may be spent. The funds we raised had no such limitations and was able to pay for things that otherwise would have been unavailable to them.