The Story of Where New Books Come From

Once upon a time there was a library, and people who loved to read flocked to it to borrow books, because when you REALLY like to read it gets too expensive to go out and buy your own books (the same is true of audio books, movies, and music) all the time and public libraries are FREE!  One day someone asked, "Where do all of these books come from?  How do you know what to buy?"

People like us who develop library collections have lots of tools at our disposal to choose books for our library.

We read review journals and magazines.

We check best seller lists and keep up with book awards.

We often meet with book vendors representing independent and small presses and companies that sell specialized works.  Now THAT can be exhausting!

Sometimes we get books automatically by subscribing to certain authors with our book vendors.  We know that everyone will be looking for the latest James Patterson, John Grisham, and Stuart Woods, so why take the chance of missing a review?  Sometimes it doesn't matter if the reviewers like it or not as long as our readers do!

We also listen carefully when our borrowers suggest purchases.  If their suggestions sound like something our card holders would read, we usually buy it.  After all, you are the consumer!

Once the books have been ordered they are shipped (depending on their publication date), checked in, processed (that's where the barcodes, spine labels, and covers come from), and then added to our online catalog.  After that, the new books go out to our shelves for your reading pleasure!

And that's where library books come from.  The end.