[Original posting on this topic appeared in COLLDV-L no.1587 and is
reproduced below; the summary of responses follows it.]
From: "STEVE ALLEMAN, UNO" <SPALI_at_jazz.ucc.uno.edu>
I was talking to a friend of mine in publishing about the price dif-
ferential between paperbound and hardbound editions. Publishers are apparently
concerned that libraries, the primary market for hardbound books, are buying
softbound editions when they are available and rebinding them if they have to.
My friend was surprised to hear that my library's policy is to always buy the
hardbound edition if it is available, and his reaction made me wonder how
typical our policy is. I thought I would pose this question to the members of
this list -- does your library, as a matter of policy, always buy the hardbound
edition of a book, if it is available?
If people would like to respond directly to me, I will summarize the
responses for the list.
Steve Alleman
Collection Management Librarian
Univ. of New Orleans
spali_at_uno.edu
=========================================================================
From: "STEVE ALLEMAN, UNO" <SPALI_at_jazz.ucc.uno.edu>
A while back I posted an inquiry to this list as to whether
libraries preferred paperbound or hardbound editions, when both were
available. Never again will I innocently use the expression "I will
summarize for the list." The response was pretty overwhelming.
The overall results were that 37 respondents preferred paperbacks,
17 preferred hardbacks, and 18 decided on a case by case basis (usually
by discipline or based on anticipated use of a particular title). Within
these broad caegories there was a lot of variation. Among those who
preferred paperbacks, some rebound the books automatically, some rebound
selectively, and some put the books on the shelves without rebinding. I
heard from a number of people who claimed that the policy of the library
was to prefer hardbacks, but they admitted that in practice this policy
was not followed. Many claimed to have recently or gradually switched
to paper-preferred. The idea of preferring paperbacks above a certain
price differential was mentioned repeatedly, but usually with the admis-
sion that the price differential was almost always over $20 and thus much
greater than the cost of any of the other options (permabinding, Kapco,
etc.).
This was a very unscientific survey, and the categories are not
as clearly defined as I would have liked, but it's clear that the trend
is toward paperbound. The question is what will publishers do when they
realize that the only market for hardbound editions has basically evapo-
rated.
Received on Wed Dec 17 1997 - 08:31:08 EST