Instruct your local library...

[dwndrgn]

Not too long ago (but with the number of new members, the thread is most likely hidden behind many pages of newer posts) I posted a thread about telling your networks what you'd like to watch (hmm, perhaps I'll have to revive it, we've got loads of new members who haven't voiced their opinions yet after all) and I've just decided that quite apart from the fact that I dearly love my library (hey, free books, who can argue???), they could really use some instruction on where they need to beef up their shelves.

So, on to the point, if there existed some central spot where you could post your thoughts, ideas and pleas to your local library, what would you say?

My first general points would be:
1. Put it back!! My library recently jostled all fiction together in one large spot. Mysteries huddling up to science fiction and fantasy leering at romance and historical taking notes on contemporary...ugh. What a mess. I love wandering the shelves, but I like the way that I used to be able to wander the mystery shelves if that was what I was in the mood for and so on.
2. While the new airy look is quite nice, you've mixed the stacks with the general common area and the magazine area. Now while browsing the shelves I've got to hear people speaking on their phones *, parents berating their kids, teenagers discussing some webpage they've found...these areas should be clearly separated and defined. This giant open space not only mingles quiet spaces with louder ones, but creates more of an echo so whispers seem like shouts...
*Cell phones should be turned off upon entering a library, just like at the movies. Yet, I have not been to my library in the past year without encountering someone on their phone. Rude beasts. I don't care what Joanie said about Billy.
3. If a series becomes popular and people are clamoring to read it - don't you think they are going to want to read the whole thing? Why just get the latest book? You purge quite often and you've got loads of space (witness the giant common area that nobody likes) so get the whole series. Or at lease if you get one of them get the first, not the second or fourth.
4. If an author has a wildly popular book out, you may want to do some research into their other works. Maybe your patrons would be interested in other things they've written, especially if the single copy you have has been checked out.

Ok, there's my pitch. What would you say to your library?

[sanityassassin]

I was going to agree with the third and then the fourth comment but all are quite applicable in my local library what really gets my goat is the serial books to which they have got 2 or 3 but no more. My local library has 3 books of robert Jordans wheel of time 5, 9, and 12 what is that all about.

[Nesacat]

I'll second you on the mobile phone thing Dwndrgn. There should be a requirement that they not be used AT ALL inside the library. Many people take the signs telling them to turn off their phones to mean that it's okay to have the thing on vibrating mode and they then proceed to have loud, long conversations.

I don't get this whole deal with getting bits and pieces of a series of books either. I would assume that people reading them would wish to work their way along systematically and not jump from book 2 to 16 and then to 25.

I also wish library staff actually cared about what they were doing and are not simply there because there was no other job available. I went to the library once and a man asked the librarian for Gone With The Wind and she sent him to the Geography section. You should have seen his face.

It's also very unhelpful for beginner readers looking for some guidance and might just put them off ever coming to the library. Not to mention the fact that it makes shelving very complicated. They were shelving Neil Gaiman under horror because the librarian said 'the covers looked scary.'

[chrispenycate]

*Green with jealousy*
It's about fourty years since I last had access to a public library in my own language. If I want a book now, I have to plan to buy it, and apart from occasional impulse buying, this means planning considerably in advance, (we can ingore the trip to Hay on Wye, for the time being)
I do, however, remember the library I inhabited in my youth; divided into non-fiction (further subdivided by category, sub-category and so forth (and frequently fifth and sixth) and fiction, alphabetically by author. With any garish or amusing covers decently hidden beneath neutral outer sleeves. (and, to ensure longevity, no paperbacks. Indeed, I believe some publishers bound special "library editions", toughened up to resist barbarian hordes) If you didn't have a list of authors in your head, or written in ballpoint on your arm during geography classes, then browsing could be a long process. Certainly, checking out the bright yellow "Gollancz" covers was worthwhile, but any publisher might have brought out a new work of science fiction, or close. (Not quite as complex as a second hand bookshop, though)
Still, the librarians were invariably helpful, even if they knew naught of my chozen field, and loved any who shared their worship of the printed word. I hope my new niece-in-law will be a librarian like them.
There was one small table with two chairs in the middle of "non-fiction land", for those who needed to research, nothing for fictionites. The rest was bookshelves, floor to ceiling, placed politically incorrectly close enough that a wheelchair could never have accessed them. No computers or mobile phones, no contact with the outer world, and data maintained on battered cards in an equally battered filing cabinet. Everything wrong ergonomically, geometrically, acoustically.

I miss it a lot.

[j. d. worthington]

As do I, Chris... And, speaking of card catalogues... A few years ago, when working at an SFF shop here, one of our regular customers (a professor at UT), told me about how many times -- despite his overall support for transferring these things to computer -- he'd had to get them to actually go up to the closed-off upper floors, open up the old card catalogue, look through the drawers, and find articles that he knew existed (having referenced them in the past), but which had somehow got dropped between the hard card and the data-entry... and which no one would ever have been likely to know about, had someone like he not brought it to their attention... A darned good argument for keeping both systems at least intact, even if one is no longer used except in special cases...

[Cloud]

I have a good friend who is a librarian and have been witness to her rants for a long time. While it's easy for the public to clamor and suggest, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

--local libraries are funded by local government; that is,they are chronically UNDERfunded. Most do not have the money to buy all the books we would like them to. More useful than making suggestions (or demands)is to actually donate books, time, or money.
--library book buying is arcane, and constrained by budget, timing, and bureaucratic bs. It's usually not as simple as just saying, well, you have this book, why don't you just buy this one, too?
--most librarians love books more than people, so sometimes the human assistance is lacking. I love books more than people, too, so I can't blame them.

[mosaix]

I'd tell them to embrace their real role in the community - a force for revolution, empowerment and change.

Get out into schools, factories, offices, hospitals and old peoples homes. Anywhere where there are people. Explain the liberating power of knowledge.

[jackokent]

Originally Posted by mosaix

I'd tell them to embrace their real role in the community - a force for revolution, empowerment and change.

Get out into schools, factories, offices, hospitals and old peoples homes. Anywhere where there are people. Explain the liberating power of knowledge.

I agree but the problem is paying for it

All these wonderful library improvements are fine if we the tax payer want to fund it over, say road repairs and old people homes etc. While people want thier council tax kept low there is always going to be pressure on non-statutory services like libraries which are percieved as "nice things" but non essential. My personnal view is they are essential but that isn't the view of the communities in general as numbers are falling.

Also agree with whoever said ban mobile phones

[Cloud]

Originally Posted by mosaix

Explain the liberating power of knowledge.

Unfortunately the ones who need this don't want to hear it.

[Teresa Edgerton]

We have a fairly good county library system here, thank goodness. The SF/Fantasy section at the main branch doesn't have all the books I would like, of course, but from the complaints I hear from other members it's a lot better than most places.

Sometimes, annoyingly, they will scatter the books in a series between several different branches. But that just means I have to look in the catalogue and request the book.

I've never actually suggested that they buy a specific book. I figure that checking out books helps to influence them, since they do keep track of these things. I have no idea if it would make any difference if I actually asked for a book, in such a large system.

[LauraJUnderwood]

On the one hand (says the librarian) it is a money thing. Libraries are getting cut back in funding while users are creating a higher demand.

On the other, it is annoying, I know, when series are scattered about, etc.

However, what generally happens is that some branches may opt not to carry certain books (in certain systems), and others try to carry everything.

But of course, certain difficulties arise.

People DO steal books from the library. Not necessarily and open theft either.

Library has Book One of Big Fantasy Trilogy. It goes out well, so library--listening to the demands of the readers--puchases Book Two. But as in all things, inflation has occurred. Book Two costs more, and--whoa--the Red Tape People (otherwise known as the money lenders or your local government officials) have decided This Year they want to spend boocoo bucks on some new park for the elderly to walk in.

Either they raise taxes or they cut spending--so guess who gets the knife?

And In The Meantime:

Library cannot afford more than one copy of Book Two of Big Fantasy Trilogy. But they buy it because of popular demand.

Patron A checks out Book Two of Big Fantasy Trilogy and takes it home.

Patron B puts a hold on Book Two.

Patron A returns book, which means Patron B gets it next. Patron B then leaves town for some reason and leaves book on airplane, in car, whatever, and Book Two is stolen, lost, forgotten on the beach...

Frustrated Librarian now goes to database in hopes of replacing Book Two, but LO! The Bean Counters of The Big Press have said, "Hmmm, numbers are down. Book Two is not selling as well as we hoped. Let us not reprint." (Doesn't matter that it is because they printed MORE copies in the second run, which makes the numbers look like less sold--Author of Big Fantasy probably sold just as many copies of two as one, but there were more available at the time--and of course, when they didn't sell, they were either remaindered or pulped)

Frustrate Librarian has already ordered Book Three, and it is on the way, but she cannot get Book Two because it is Out Of Print...

A simplification, I might add, but closer to the truth than most people realize.

If we can't get the money to buy books (and replace them) and the publishers don't make them available, we can't get the books.

Catch 22.

OTOH, on the matter of cell phones, all it take is for a patron to complain to the librarian (at least in our system) that the cell phone users are creating a disturbance with their noise and the librarian will hush them and hustle them outside post haste.

I have had to step into the stairwell at the main branch on more occasions than I can count on fingers and toes to tell people to Please Take Their Calls outside (our stairwell is like a megaphone--talk in there and we hear it all over the building...)

Laura J. Underwood
Author of DRAGON'S TONGUE

[littlemissattitude]

Ah, card catalogs...Why, oh why, oh why couldn't they have kept the card catalogs when they instituted computerized catalogs? Don't get me wrong. I love having the catalog computerized; I can access it right from home, find out which books are in which branches and whether or not they are actually in the library at the moment, all without having to chase all over town wasting gas and getting frustrated. But in my county's system, it seems like they go offline for several hours to a couple of days every other month or so...sometimes more often than that. When they do, there is no way to find out what the library has or where they've got it squirrled away.

One time, when I was still in school, I was trying to track down a couple of final references for a paper that was due in a day or two. I went downtown to the central branch and found that the computers were down and would be for at least the rest of the day. When I asked for some help from one of the librarians, I was basically told that it was just my tough luck and that there was no real obligation on the library's part to make sure that the collection was accessible.

My other suggestion is that there be at least some attempt to keep the library's non-fiction collection at least moderately up to date. At my old branch where I lived before we moved into town, the most up-to-date books they had on geology had been published before plate tectonics and continental drift came into general acceptance. When I complained one time about the lack of up-to-date non-fiction, the librarian in charge at that branch informed me that the library's function was to provide entertainment reading, not information.

[dwndrgn]

All this is true and frustrating for all involved. I do happen to donate books to my library - I've even checked out books that I had originally bought . And, all the rants aside, my library does a wonderful job of listening to us. I suggest books all the time and I see one or two pop up here and there.

Don't get me wrong, I love my library. The staff are wonderful and friendly (quite the opposite of those who worked in the library I used while still in school - they were terrible. Probably got harrassed by teenagers too often to have any patience left), they keep it clean and they have a large and easily accessed 'New' section right up front. Casual browsers can walk in and look at all the new and popular books, pick them up, walk two steps to one of the several counters surrounding the area and check them out. They even have (and this is my personal favorite) an entire rack holding the books that are on hold. So, if I use my lovely little computer to hold four books, and then see online that they are now available for pick up; I walk in to that shelf, look for my name and pick them up, take them to the counter and check them out. If in a hurry, I can be in and out in five minutes. They even cheered me when I suggested that the post cards telling me the books are available were overkill since I used the online notification - saving them time and money.

They do a great job. I just like to rant and give suggestions because after all, I know best . They probably get a good chuckle out of my emails too

Actually, I really ought to send them a nice letter. After hurricane Charley, they lost a lot of roof and couldn't use their main building. They opened up the back 'employees only' section and let us come in and pick up books there while they were renovating.

[LauraJUnderwood]

School Librarians always have it tough.

Mine was a cranky old woman who looked like Petunia Pig. Still, I got to know her better one summer when I helped clean the library after school ended.

She turned out to be a really sweet woman, but the day-to-day of dealing with teens just made her hard when she was working.

Laura J. Underwood
Author of ARD MAGISTER

[BookStop]

I, too, love libraries. I haven't seen much of a cell phone issue at the local library I use, but I can imagine what a pain the a** that would be- How rude! I used to work at a small library in Maryland and we did sometimes have problems with not having every book in the series, but I would like to point out that librarians aren't omnipotent. Ask and ye shall recieve is the secret motto of most libraries (librarians wouldn't be librarians if they didn't want everyone to read, read, read), so just ask. If the library can't afford to buy the book, they can probably borrow it from other libraries int he area.