Editorial: Think Global, Buy Local

The other day I had lunch with a friend, a public librarian, when the subject turned to this year’s crop of new books—and, in particular, one children’s title that had received glowing reviews.

“But are the kids in your branch actually reading it?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” my friend said with a sigh. “We don’t have it.” She then reminded me that new books in her library were bought centrally, and that she and her staff had no say whatsoever in selecting the titles they received.

Centralizing selection isn’t a new phenomenon, but I would wager that it’s a growing one. Back in 2004, Library Journal estimated that six out of 10 multibranch systems had centralized selection.

What is centralized selection? You’re lucky if you have to ask. Basically, it’s when the power to decide what new, front-list materials should be bought is taken away from local librarians and given to one person (or more) who buys books for the entire system. Less frequently, that decision making is given entirely to a vendor (vendors are often used quite sensibly to select in areas where staff lack expertise, like books in a foreign language).

Proponents of centralized purchasing say that taking away the power of decision making from frontline librarians frees them from having to read all those tedious reviews and allows them to focus on the important stuff, like customer service. (It beats me how you can give great service with a collection you didn’t create.) No longer burdened by book buying, the staff has more time to analyze collections, determining what’s hot and weeding what’s not (of course, lots of librarians do that anyway). By buying for a system, proponents claim they’re creating more varied collections. (Frankly, I think we’re better off buying for people—mainly the kids you know—and not some system.) In the rhetoric surrounding this debate, resisters are portrayed as old school, while advocates of centralization are streamlining, creating efficiencies, leveraging the library’s resources. It’s the Luddites versus the futurists.

I’m all for vendor tools or services that help us accomplish an ever more complex task. But in moving this decision-making process from the local librarian to someone in a central office, let’s be clear about what gets lost.

For one thing, I don’t care how many community profiles you create, local staff know their communities best (and if they don’t, the library has a real problem). They know their children and young adults, their interests and dreams, their schools and curriculum. They know what books really work in their preschool storytime. Or what parents, on a Saturday afternoon, are looking for. They can guess what title will be wildly popular, and go out on a limb and buy multiple copies. They know what quirky novel will be just right for a certain teen.

For another thing, there’s no greater experience for new librarians than being responsible for buying front-list titles. It engages them in a continuous learning process as they grow familiar with the review literature, publishers, and trends, on the one hand, and their community and its evolving needs on the other.

It’s wonderful to take your budget, large or small, and “make it work,” seeing if the books you purchased head out the door or fall asleep on the shelves. It’s the best way to get to know your collection, because, after all, you are responsible for it. Want your staff to develop good reader’s advisory skills? It begins with book selection.

Over the years, public libraries have marketed themselves as many things, from information centers to community centers. But the one constant has been books and readers, both young and old. They rely on our expertise either tacitly (in providing the right collections) or actively (what should I read next?).

Is this really something we’re prepared to abandon?

bkenney@reedbusiness.com