At last some common sense, the points made by Simon are important.
No supplier is going to check you profile etc every time they go to select
books, they will do some form of composite list for everyone, which is why
we will finish up with book shop style stock, which will do libraries no
good at all.
Good stock promotion comes from stock awareness, and that means working
with the stock from selecting to it's arrival on shelf.
Even the Fiction Health Check is not that accurate as there is no
indication of how this list is compiled.
Peter Hebdon
Senior Librarian, Fiction & Reader Development
Wallsend Library
Ferndale Road
Wallsend
NE28 7NB
Tel: 0191 200 6968
Fax: 0191 200 6967
Email: [log in to unmask]
Unless otherwise stated, opinions, conclusions and other information
expressed in this message are personal and not those of North Tyneside
Council
Simon Craddock
<simon.craddock@KIRKL To: [log in to unmask]
EES.GOV.UK> cc: (bcc: Peter Hebdon/Cultural Services/ECS/ntc)
Sent by: Subject: Supplier Selection
"lis-pub-libs: UK
Public Libraries"
<LIS-PUB-LIBS@JISCMAI
L.AC.UK>
20/07/2007 17:22
Please respond to
Simon Craddock
Good to see such a lively debate.
I'd better weigh in with my own view:
1. Pure supplier selection will reduce stock range and turn libraries
into poorer versions of WH Smith.
2. Creating good range and balanced stock is a skill, some of that can
be built into a stock specification, some cannot. For this reason I
favour a mixed economy, using supplier selection for the easy stuff but
nurturing librarian stock knowledge to do the rest. Keeping these skills
within libraries helps us to recruit librarians, it's also what most of
our customers think that we are about. It's much easier going out and
promoting the service if you have direct control over what's on the
shelves. Customers (and prospective customers) respect and value our
skills and knowledge.
3. Narrowing choice by pursuing volume issues is a dead end. We cannot
compete with retail and nor should we try. Libraries must have a better
vision and clearer sense of worth than that.
4. Simplistic over-use of community profiles and demand measurement
will constrict stock choice. Opening the Book's Stock Quality Health
Check only measures fiction range, no such similar measure exists for
non-fiction so pure demand will lead to a very predictable stock range.
Simon Craddock
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