B&N and Podunk Public Library

I enjoyed a wonderful lunch and visit with my buddy Kim yesterday. After we split a burger at Red Robin, we headed for B&N to have a look see and then shared a cookie. I walked away with a new urban fantasy by Jeri Smith Ready. Charlaine Harris blogged about Ready's book, Wicked Game. Charlaine rarely steers you wrong, so I picked it up with my extra 15% off coupon. I almost bought the latest Laurell K. Hamilton book instead, but decided to put that one on hold at the library and support the midlist author. Tough call for me as I do have all Hamilton's Anita books.

While Kim and I were chatting she mentioned she wanted to interview me for one of her blogs. The goal is to provide info on how books get into libraries, the back scene stuff from how the decision is made to purchase to when the book arrives on the shelf.

I really don't live in Podunk, USA. My town is on the outskirts of a metropolitan area and our population is over 40K at last count. Over 80% of residents have college degrees and the average household income is over 90K. I don't live in Stepford, but at times it does feel that way. This is not reality, folks.

So, the library tends to reflect our community. Heavy focus on kids, little and big. Not that the library doesn't have a great adult collection, but getting midlist authors on the shelves is not a major goal. Collection development is more quick and dirty than that. Lots of standing orders. Lots of preselected vendor lists used to encumber those development dollars.

If you want a midlist author's book, you have to buy it from B&N. Or talk really sweet to the adult librarian and get her to order the title for you. And that means work and time on her part.

The director has toyed with the library going to a bookstore model. Guess it is a new concept in library world. This doesn't mean the library will have more of the less known authors on the shelf, it is all about how the place is organized. A little focus on what is on the shelves in addition to how those shelves are laid out would be a positive thing.

Lots of random thoughts this morning, I may tweak this later, but you get the drift. Libraries are focused on serving up the "vanilla" if you want "bear tracks" best go to B&N.