From: Paul Metz <pmetz_at_vt.edu>
I said I'd summarize to the list when I got replies to my 2/25/05 inquiry,
[Original posting]
I'd be interested in learning from colldev heads at large academic
libraries whether you are collecting audio books, and if so
policies, rough amount spent, use, dos and don'ts.
-but in fact all I got was the following from a mid-sized state
university in the NE. Undoubtedly there are some who buy actively in
this area and didn't send me a note (but will today -- inevitably) but
I'm still going to infer from all the dogs not barking that the
typical large academic library is still staying out of this game -- as
are we at Virginia Tech:
From the mid-sized state university in the NE:
"We're a campus of about 13,000 FTE. Our audio book collection was
started five years ago and has about 350 titles in it. I usually
allocate ~$3,000 to it, but we will probably end up steering much of
that money towards other formats this year (like books).
"The Harry Potter books (read so well by Jim Dale) are our among our
most popular titles, along with anything done by David Sedaris, and
the current crop of non-fiction books about history (presidents, wars,
etc.). The use of this collection has been good across all titles, but
especially for fiction.
"I try to pay attention to audio books that earn consistently good
reviews in Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. We have
a loan period of four weeks, but they can be renewed if there are no
holds. We also only will buy unabridged works, and our preference
lately has been for cds instead of cassettes (they seem to be less
fragile). We have had consistently good service from Recorded Books.
For instance, they have been accommodating about replacing cassettes
when lost/damaged, either for free or for a nominal fee if the item
was old. I think that other vendors are also adopting more liberal
policies when it comes to replacements."
---------------
Paul Metz, Director of Collection Management
University Libraries / Virginia Tech
P.O. Box 90001 / Blacksburg, VA / 24062-9001
Ph: (540) 231-5663 FAX: (540) 231-3694 email: pmetz_at_vt.edu
Received on Fri Apr 22 2005 - 01:11:50 EDT