Comments on: Libraries Missing Books

By: Jackson Fox

Jackson Fox — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:58:56 +0000

Cybrarian: Many of our books are available through Baker & Taylor and Ingram. “Getting Real” isn’t one of those, but books participating in our distribution programs are listed with a variety vendors. Of course, not all of those vendors handle POD books very well

Tim: Thanks for getting this discussion started!

Jackson Fox, UX Designer at Lulu.com

By: Nicole

Nicole — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:53:17 +0000

Cy,

You can buy them through LuLu - it does mean going to one more vendor, but it’s an option.

Nicole

By: Cybrarian

Cybrarian — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:12:03 +0000

Well, mostly the problem is this book is NOT FOR SALE - at least to the vendors and the publishing houses that it is EASY for libraries to buy from. That does not completely excuse them, but to be honest, libraries of all sizes and kinds rely on EASY ways to obtain materials. Just saying that it is out there somewhere does not make it easy to get a purchasable copy into the library itself. Amazon is not selling this book. Where can our library get a copy?? We use Baker and Taylor as our vendor, but can they get this? Probably not. Just knowing it is out there is one thing, actually getting a copy is another.

Thanks for reading….

By: Nicole

Nicole — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:59:02 +0000

Thanks for clarifying - I too love my O’Reilly books - I don’t want to have to open a new window/tab while programming to read an online guide when I can just open a book instead

By: Tim Spalding

Tim Spalding — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:53:10 +0000

A couple thoughts:

1. I didn’t mean to go after all libraries. I can very much understand why public libraries don’t have the time to wade through the dregs of publishing. But some good stuff has and will emerge from places like Lulu, and at least their jobbers should be aware of them.
2. Tech books are a problem. Quite frankly, they’re starting to matter less and less. I still swear by my O’Reilly’s but I’m a book guy. The young programmers I’ve hired don’t use books. I hope this is an edge issue, not a case of the future being unevenly distributed, as the saying goes.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:48:44 +0000

I think part of the issue here is attention. The library could monitor lulu and purchase the top books (technical or otherwise), but the promotion aspect works just as badly. A library could purchase these books and build a collection. However, if nobody uses them, and nobody requested them, then they will just gather dust. The public doesn’t know about it enough to let the library know to purchase OR the people who do buy these books don’t know a library could buy it for them. Books are purchased more from marketing and more so if the quality matches the hype.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:33:30 +0000

May, I know that the O’Reilly online library is a great resource for a personal user - but for libraries the cost was insane! I’d love to see some of these tools offered to non-profits at a significant discount.

By: May

May — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:04:52 +0000

I think it’s sad how behind libraries are with regards to tech books. So much so that most technical people (programmers especially) have given up on the library. Why go look when there are books from the 90’s there? So, no one goes to look, no one requests books which are the trend setting items, and libraries then knows nothing about them.

I know that the argument is that these publications move too fast for them to purchase. It’s partly true.

Most of the publishing houses have gathered and put together all there collections into a elibrary for subscribers. Why are libraries not subscribers? (perhaps the costs are prohibitive, I don’t know) but I know that there are plenty of programmers with access via internet and these elibraries too all the titles they need. They will never need to go back to a library again.

So have we gotten to the state where both sides have given up on each other?