[Web4lib] Libraries: Standing at the Wrong Platform, Waiting for the Wrong Train?

[Richard Wiggins]

One model to consider is that of Cracker Barrel restaurants, a chain
based in Tennessee that tends to locate their stores near Interstate
highways.  They sell books-on-tape at their stores, and they buy back
used ones for redistribution.

I heard an interview on NPR a couple of years ago with an author or
playwright (can't recall his name).  In his youth he hopped rides on
freight trains.  He got into the habit of stealing books to read from
the public library in whatever town he landed in.  After he was done
reading, he'd return the books to the public library in his next stop
down the line.  Sort of his own version of ILL, though ILLegal.

/rich

On 10/27/05, Matthew J. Dovey <matthew.dovey at oucs.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> > What if they 'buy' through Amazon a title you'd -never- add
> > to your collection?
>
> There are models which don't necessarily add to your collection.
>
> You might offer the patron a choice - ILL at a cost of x to the patron
> (but a delay), or the patron can buy it through the library at a cost of
> y (typically y > x) but with a much shorter delay.
>
> Alternatively, the library might buy the book anyway, but then rather
> than add to the catalogue sell the book afterwards (via Amazon or ebay
> etc.). Yes, there is a risk that the library wo'n't resell it afterwards
> (or at a much lower price than it bought it). On the other hand it might
> sell at a higher price. Someone would have to look at whether this
> balances out. Alternatively the library might pass some/all of this
> risk/gain onto the patron.
>
> The key is to think a little more laterally that the more traditional
> acquisition-collection-lend-return model of the library.
>
> Matthew
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