James LaRue - myliblog

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Where do (library) books come from?

Where do the books in a library come from? How are they chosen? The short answer is that they come from various business markets. In America’s public libraries, most of our holdings come from just a handful of publishers, the so-called “Big Five.” They are Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan. On the one hand, the Big Five produce only about 10-20% of all new titles in a year published through conventional publishers. Add in self-published books, and the share of Big Five in global publishing shrinks to around 2.5%. But the Big Five still control over 80% of the trade book market in the US — and probably higher than that in public libraries. How do librarians decide which books to buy? There are three main sources: Publishers catalogs and purchase lists. Librarians usually buy things through jobbers–distributors who knows how to work with us. Those distributors are biased toward the bigger companies. Big publishers have the most ...

The gift that keeps on giving

Recently I ran across an article from an international boarding school talking about U.S. traditions around Christmas. The “Top 10 holiday traditions” for families include: Decorate the tree. Bake Christmas cookies. Write a letter to Santa (and the reindeer). Look at the twinkly lights. Build a gingerbread house. Sing Christmas carols. Exchange gifts. Wear an ugly sweater. Watch Christmas movies. Spend time with the people you love. Institutions have traditions, too. My favorite has to be the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which has a website for the sole purpose of tracking Santa. The backstory is charming. In 1955 a child saw a newspaper ad from a Sears department store encouraging children to give Santa a call. But the child misdialed, reaching instead Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup. He happened to be the operations officer on duty for the old Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) in Colorado Springs. Colonel Shoup assured the child that CONAD would ensure Santa’...

The real costs of housing

On November 1, 2024, Alicia Gresley addressed housing from the angle of commuting and public transportation. (See Trick or Treat: the Economics of the Commute .) Her points were all well-made, but I wanted to expand on some related issues. At the end of last year, Garfield County Libraries staff interviewed 90 community leaders. We asked about and tallied recurrent concerns, and housing was top of the list. Leaders identified several big issues under that heading: Recruitment . The cost of housing (Garfield County is one of the least attainable in the nation) means that it can be very difficult to bring in outside talent with rich skills and relevant experience. Even if the pay is good, it's not good enough to cover a $1.2 million house. And if new employees have to find more affordable housing in the western part of the county, they may shy away from long and frustrating commutes. Retention . What many employers do, then, is to focus on finding and growing local talent. It happen...

The Talking Book Library

Once I volunteered at a radio station. I read the daily newspaper for the blind. I wasn’t particularly good at it. I recorded at 6am and quickly learned that I need to be on the other side of at least two cups of coffee before I can talk. One time, I ended my two-hour session with the discovery that I forgot to hit the record button. The radio station had a lot of followers, but they were gently amused by my flub. (And now … Yesterday’s news?) Years later I moved to Colorado and wound up taking a tour of the Colorado Talking Book Library (CTBL) in Denver. A department of the Colorado State Library, part of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (a program of the even larger Library of Congress), the Talking Book Library can be found in every state. Its history traces back almost 100 years. It is a magnificent institution. Who do they serve? Millions. It’s easy enough to understand the meaning of “blind” — you can’t see. It’s physical. But even that has gradations...

Imagine That: Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Garfield County

When I was a child, my mother did three things that turned me into a reader. First, she signed me up for a library card. Later, she enrolled me in the Landmark series of American biographies for children, aimed at kids 10-15. There were similar series: Bobbs-Merrill’s “Childhood of Famous Americans,” which ran from the 1930s through the 1960s, had famously orange bindings and were also popular. Third, and maybe most important, my mother belonged to the Book of the Month club, which resulted in a modest home library. My mother knew what she was doing. It happens that there’s a lot of research about all of this. I often cite a University of Nevada, Reno study conducted back in 2010. It examined 27 countries over a span of 20 years. The surprising finding was that regardless of parental income or education, just having 500 books in the home was as good as having two parents with Master’s degrees. Early exposure to literature boosts the developing brain. It grows vocabulary. It builds empa...

Promises Made, Promises Kept

In 2017 a sudden drop in tax revenues from oil and gas properties precipitated a library crisis. Almost overnight, a third of the staff lost their jobs. In 2019, Garfield County voters approved an ongoing mill levy of 1.5. Included in that ballot language was a series of promises: restoring library hours; keeping our libraries well-maintained and in good repair; retaining qualified staff; providing books, technology and materials; providing educational classes and events, including literacy programs to help children and teens learn to read and do homework, train veterans and job seekers for new careers; prepare students for college and careers; help seniors fight isolation and prevent the effects of aging; and finally, to do all that “with citizen oversight and an independent annual audit of expenditures.” I thought it would be interesting, just as today’s crop of election-seekers are making their own promises, to highlight how well we’ve kept ours. Our Citizens Oversight committee, wh...