See, the thing, is the cost of processing and cataloging an information material, can be far more than the intrinsic value of it. Materials arrive at libraries mostly these days already cataloged via the vendors’ marc programs, especially fiction and other materials from trade publishers, which also uploads into the library’s own OPAC.

Did that make any sense to anyone who isn’t a librarian, one wonders?????

But donating materials to your library is indeed an excellent thing to do, and any community outreach is also more than an excellent action!

Love, C.

The budget for print materials is reduced constantly because the money for the electronic resources has to come from somewhere — and the budgets for public libraries is always in danger, if not in the situation of actually being reduced every year. And there’s less and less money every year for salaries.

Constance, I couldn’t agree more. One thing that we’ve been doing in my local community is raising awareness among people to bring their used books to the library rather than tossing them or setting them out on the sidewalk for free. This extra influx of books really helps to boost the reading material available and the extra books are sold by the library for a profit, which helps to supplement its diminishing budget.

I’m sure this isn’t unique to my community, but wouldn’t it be great if many many more people did this same thing for their local library!

I was talking about writing and the business of trying to make some money from it. So I am talking about writers’ organizations, more than anyone.

After all, graphic novels, comix, etc. are a part of the publishing industry, though some would prefer to think otherwise.

As for the state of the libraries, I know completely why things are as they are. One of them is the mission statement of a public library, which includes the recreation and entertainment sections, and the sections that declare we must provide what the service community wants.

The service community, especially that coveted younger member, craves graphic novels and dvds. The older service member and the single mother service member, etc. crave romances. Supposedly everyopne craves King, but I have noticed the multiple copies of the latest tome just sit on the shelves, nevermind ….

The budget for print materials is reduced constantly because the money for the electronic resources has to come from somewhere — and the budgets for public libraries is always in danger, if not in the situation of actually being reduced every year. And there’s less and less money every year for salaries.

In the meantime, with idea of hooking sf/f Big Annual Award Event to another Big Annual Event being discussed, perhaps this is the BAE they would do best with? Since — 1) Hollywood attends; 2) trade publisher reps attend; 3) public libraries buy more and more graphic novels all the time (as well as dvds, and other non-traditional book stuff).

I swear, I’m starting to feel sad, looking around my libraries these days and seeing how few new BOOKs are there, especially fiction, and then they are seldom anything I want to read — endless titles by the same author that I never read, for instance. I understand why, and that this is inevitable, but still, it is painful.

 

Yanno, it’s funny that they are talking ALA (American Library Association) and seem to have not spoken with ANY of the librarians who write SF/F and have published it too.  They certainly haven’t researched just how the process of actually purchasing materials for a library works, and WHO IS THE ONE IN CHARGE.

In the meantime, we are gone now, out on LI, far far far out on Long Island, in observance of The Anniversary! Spouse has laptop, we are wireless, blahblahblah, we travel, we stay connected. We are the world yaddayaddayadda.

(smoochies, yall — oysters in the offing!)