Buying Books Online is Crucial for My Small Library
A question just went out on my local listserv asking about libraries that use credit cards to buy books online. I’ve used a credit card (sometimes personal, sometimes business) in my two most recent positions and highly recommend trying to convince your school to get you one. I buy almost all of my books on Amazon, often getting used copies. I save copious amounts of money doing this. I was able to just buy all the titles on the DCF list, a few of the Caldecott and Newbury lists, and some audiobooks, all for less than $340.
My impression is that most school librarians still use vendors for most of their book buying. The argument being that receiving books pre-processed saves so much time (and time=money) that it’s just worth it. But I just don’t see it.
Granted, sellers of used kids books on Amazon are a different breed than what I was used to from my college days. I got some real dogged-eared volumes when I first started out. You have to be much more selective about who you buy kids books from. But even the new Amazon prices are so much lower than what I’ve seen from the vendors.
I average $9/hardcover on Amazon. That easily covers the 45 seconds it takes to catalog. I have volunteers (and occasionally students) do the stickering, stamping and all the other terrible things we librarians do to books. And sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you can get ex-library books that already have mylar wrapping.
So I’d estimate that for every two books I could get from a vendor, I get three online. And that’s one extra happy kid for every two.
I’m sure other librarians have many additional arguments against the idea (we always have good arguments, don’t we?). I’d love to hear some, and do my best to convince you otherwise.
Just make sure you pay off that balance every month, whatever you do.
I was turned off on the big jobbers when I realized that the deep discounts they were tempting me with were restricted to an extremely select list of current bestseller types. I wound up paying full price for most of the titles I wanted. Now I buy mostly through my local bookstore, which gives us twenty percent off across the board.
I would be interested to know how people persuade their financial officers to allow them to have library credit cards. It is the only thing that makes sense in some cases, but a series of business managers here have only howled with despair and invoked the Auditors when I pleaded for one.
02 Apr 2007 at 12:44 pm