Re: [ALCTS-acqnet] Sending a Book to Libraries

From: Forrest Link <linkf_at_tcnj.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2016 16:43:45 -0500 (EST)
To: acqnet_at_lists.ala.org
Jesse, 

Great question! 

We at TCNJ have what we call "babies on the doorstep" arrive a few times each month (just got one today). They come to me and I, as gatekeeper, will mention the most exceptional to the appropriate selector, but so much of this stuff is dreck. As a rule, if we didn't order it, we don't want it. These books are generally more of a problem than a boon, wasting staff time. We have a giveaway rack in our Library Cafe for these sort of books and our students are considerably less discriminating than we are, but it seems wasteful on your part to randomly ship books out hoping libraries will add them. I think a better use of your funds would be marketing through vendors. 

Cheers! 

Forrest E. Link 
Acquisitions Librarian 
World Languages & Cultures Librarian 
The College of New Jersey Library 

linkf_at_tcnj.edu 
609.771.2412 



From: "Jesse Lambertson" <jlambertson_at_sqcc.org> 
To: melanet-l_at_googlegroups.com 
Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2016 3:01:13 PM 
Subject: [ALCTS-acqnet] Sending a Book to Libraries 

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! 

I have a question about getting a copy of a book into library collections. 

This question can be for any library type and I will consider any and all comments. 

Context : 

The Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center (An organization in Washington, DC that promotes education on The Sultanate of Oman and the Indian Ocean. We are an educational arm of the Omani embassy) published a collection of Dhofari folk tales in translation about 4 years ago and have given it to many libraries across the United States. Some of these libraries added it to their collections even if they did not update their holdings in Worldcat. Some have done both. 

It is a quality collection of folktales for which we do not charge. We give it away. 

We are pondering, for this Spring, printing it again and sending it out to another round of libraries. 

1. By poll, who do you think is the best contact at libraries to send the book along with a letter-of-description in order to increase the odds of it being added to the local collections? 

I assume this varies by library type. I am wondering if the best contact is the subject specialist/department in academic/public libraries or technical services...or maybe acquisitions? 

Thank you for any assistance as we get this together. 

Cheers, 

Jesse 


-- 
Jesse A Lambertson 
Librarian 
Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center 
Ph: (202)-677-3967 Ext. 104 
jlambertson_at_sqcc.org 
عالم الانجازات ينحاز دوماً مع المتفائلين 


-- 
Forrest E. Link 
Acquisitions Librarian 
World Languages & Cultures Librarian 
The College of New Jersey Library 

linkf_at_tcnj.edu 
609.771.2412 
609.637.5177(fax) 
Received on Tue Jan 05 2016 - 16:45:29 EST