This is from a reader’s email. I know if you’re a bookstore you can pretty much order as many Harry Potters as you can, because you know they will sell, but how does a library decide how many Harry Potter books to buy? I do a lot of work in libraries, but I have never been on the book ordering ends of things. I know how librarians choose which books to buy, but not how many. If anyone would like to help out with some simple explanation for my library patron reader, I’d appreciate it. update: Glenn asks a good question in the comments: do libraries want our “old” copies when we’re done with them? I know there are a lot of HPs that are already gathering dust in homes across the US.
Tag: books
a few things to read
I have seen a few things that are only tangentially related to what I normally do here, but I thought you might like them.
- The New York Times does a photo essay on people and their avatars.
- Sethf does the research (yes with GOOGLE) to track down some of the facts behind Michael Gorman’s possible misquote of Jimmy Wales and who was behind it.
- Oh check me out, I’m in the BIGWIG social software showcase. I’m sorry to also be in the program, theoretically on a panel on Saturday. I said okay sometime in 2006, and had to say no sometime in March. That was apparently not enough time to not be in the program. So 1.0!
- LifeHacker does “book hacks” for the library using crowd.
- Alison Bechdel’s library card.
A Day in the Life of a Librarian
Priscilla Shontz and Richard Murray have just published their book A Day in the Life: Career Options in Library & Information Science. It’s got a millionty-zillion chapters and I should know because I read all of them before I wrote the book’s introduction. Check it out, good stuff.
a new kind of book blog
Barbara Yates makes lovely books out of wood and other recycled materials. My favorite one post blog ever. [thanks peacay]
who weeds the weeders?
They weeded the library science section at my local library. I took home a few books from the FREE cart and also snappd this picture.