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 think the person was doing a bad of of explaining how books get on the shelf. Libraries order books through a huge company (Baker and Taylor) so the processing of books in today's world is outsourced. They put the barcode on the book, download the book into the library catalog and send it to your local library. Each book has an ISBN number and if you add books from donations you end up with many multiple records for the same book which makes it difficult on the reference staff.
At our library we look up the ISBN number and tell the patron to go on Amazon and see if they can find that number and if it's cheaper than our price to order it and bring it in. We then manually add the book to the system and waive the $15.00 lost fee. Most libraries won't do that but we have a director who is people oriented and wants to make the library experience a good one. All donated, used books that aren't food stained, don't reek of perfume or smoke or are dry rotted from being stored in a hot attic or garage are used by the Friends of the Library for book sales. Any books left after the sale go to the prison in our town.