Libraries/Bookstore Annoyance

[dwndrgn]

So, I was at the library today and one of my old pet peeves was awakened. Am I the only one that gets really annoyed when a library or bookstore holds only one of a series? I was trying to find the first in a couple of old series' that I wanted to read again. One of them they only had the second book and the other they had the third. The others weren't checked out, they just didn't have them! In a bookstore they have a some excuse because they want to keep only the current ones to keep up with all of the new books, but it still gets annoying. As for libraries, you would think that if they were going to buy a book, they would at least attempt to find out if it was a series and get the others at the same time. Of course I really don't know how libraries get their books so this may not be altogether possible. I suppose I'm just being selfish in wanting them to have what I'm looking for. However, video stores seem to do it ok, keeping the sequels along with the original. I suppose I should be just plain happy that there are such things as libraries for us poor folk and quit my whining.

 

[kiwimac]

So, I was at the library today and one of my old pet peeves was awakened. Am I the only one that gets really annoyed when a library or bookstore holds only one of a series? I was trying to find the first in a couple of old series' that I wanted to read again. One of them they only had the second book and the other they had the third. The others weren't checked out, they just didn't have them! In a bookstore they have a some excuse because they want to keep only the current ones to keep up with all of the new books, but it still gets annoying. As for libraries, you would think that if they were going to buy a book, they would at least attempt to find out if it was a series and get the others at the same time. Of course I really don't know how libraries get their books so this may not be altogether possible. I suppose I'm just being selfish in wanting them to have what I'm looking for. However, video stores seem to do it ok, keeping the sequels along with the original. I suppose I should be just plain happy that there are such things as libraries for us poor folk and quit my whining.

The problem is (talking as a former librarian) that libraries only have so much money & some of that has to go on overheads. Tell the acquisitions librarian (the one who buys the books) what you are looking for. I'm sure they'll try to help.

Kiwimac

 

[littlemissattitude]

dwndrgn...this is one of my own pet peeves as well. I don't know how many times I've picked up what looks like an interesting book at the library, only to discovere that it is Volume Three or Volume Five, or whatever. I know that libraries have limited budgets, but one would think that someone would figure that if they buy Volume Two of a series, people might want to read volume one first. It almost seems like a waste of money to buy later volumes without having the earlier volumes.

And, as far as bookstores...Yeah. Earlier this year I read a great book, "Last Call", by Tim Powers, out of the library. I discovered by looking at an author site on the internet that there were two sequels to it. Of course, I wanted to read them, but my library system didn't have them available. Growl. So, even though I couldn't afford it, I took myself down to Barnes and Noble to buy the other two. Well, they had Volume Three in stock, but not Volume Two. Since they only had one copy of Three, I bought it, but I had to order Two, which took about a week to arrive. (This also entailed a second 50-mile round trip to the store to pick up the book when it came in. Growl again.) So, for a week I had Volume Three sitting at home crying out to be read, but I couldn't until I had gotten and read Volume Two. Good thing the books were wonderful enough that the wait was worth it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Definitely ask about acquiring new titles.

I know I used to do this some years ago, when asking my town library to acquire sountrack CDs. So long as I wasn;t greedy, then they were usually fine ordering them in.

 

[dwndrgn]

Thanks for the info Kiwimac. I can understand the limited budget problems but I know that if they plan on buying x number of books, wouldn't they want to start with the first volume of the series and then get the next volume in their next buying time? Then there are times when they have four copies of book A and only one copy of C but no copy of B at all. Maybe you can help with an explanation of their acquisition process...I mean do they take a copy of their inventory, along with the amount of their allocated funds and then research the most popular titles or authors? I understand thet their inventory is huge...but these days is all computerized so should be easier, plus they have the ability to cross-reference authors and subjects.

Littlemiss - been there, been annoyed by that!!

 

[milamber]

I always use libraries, since I'm broke, but I've had a problem with Martin. Book 1, a couple of copies (between the four local libraries), a couple of Book 2, Part 1 of Book 3, and they're ordering in about four copies of the next Book when it comes out becomes he's becoming so popular. Only problem - they don't have part 2 of Book 3. So I had to get my friend to buy it for me for my 21st. Talk about stupid.

 

[dwndrgn]

I always use libraries, since I'm broke, but I've had a problem with Martin. Book 1, a couple of copies (between the four local libraries), a couple of Book 2, Part 1 of Book 3, and they're ordering in about four copies of the next Book when it comes out becomes he's becoming so popular. Only problem - they don't have part 2 of Book 3. So I had to get my friend to buy it for me for my 21st. Talk about stupid.

It is probably just a combo of the lack of money, time and effort needed to find out which books are part of a series and to ensure that they have the entire series. Plus I do know that many people donate their used books to the library and these may just be partials of a series and the library just adds it to their collection, not thinking about completing the series. That doesn't make it any less annoying though!

I remember one of our older video stores used to have this cool list up front by the checkout. They asked the question: Is there a particular video that we don't have that you would like to see here? People would just list the title, why they wanted to see it and if they wanted, their email address to be contacted if the title was ordered. I think a library could use a running list like this as an aid for their purchasing decisions. Of course, people can just come in and recommend directly but this gives a concrete list that can be referred to and compiled. Maybe they have one of these and I just don't know about it. I'll have to do some inquiries the next time I'm in.

 

[milamber]

I know what you're saying, but we have four libraries run by the local council, and they have heaps of copies of every Jordan, Feist and Tolkien book. The lack of Martin books is due to him not being long broken into mainstream popularity, but having essentially half a book missing is unforgiveable.

 

[talldoubleicedcapp]

Library/Bookstore...annoyance? That may be an understatment. I get so tired of picking up a book that looks good only to find that it is volume seven of some series or other, with no sign of the previous volumes. It has gotten so frustrating that when I look for books I check first to make sure they are a novel, not a series, since I KNOW that there won't be the entire series available, which severely limits my choices . I have been known to scream outloud (and on occasion tear) in the bookstore.
As you may have noticed I live on Guam, an island in the Pacific, US territory (if you didn't know), anyway, here there is one bookstore company with two locations, Bestseller (unless you have access to the military bases on island, which I don't), unless you count the grocery store and the used book store, niehter of which have very good selection. 'What of the libraries?' you ask? I ask the same, the public libraries are okay here for some classics, childrens books and references, the (one) university library doesn't invest much in Fantasy and Sci-Fi, the fiction section is okay though, but, if your not a university student a library card is $30.

 

[dwndrgn]

I feel for you talldouble...I don't think I would survive there unless I could afford to buy books at Amazon. My husband can attest to the fact that if I don't have my (at least) weekly dose of reading - I'll become very cranky. I figure it is a safe addiction!

I'm pretty lucky that I have a relatively good library (not large, but not tiny either) so that I can get books for free. Otherwise I would be in dire straits indeed. I really shouldn't complain about how it is run - looking that gift horse in the mouth. However, from what I understand, libraries are there for the communities they serve and should be open to comments and suggestions from people in that community. Not that mine isn't, I haven't actually tested that yet.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Okay, here's my library annoyance for the day, and it doesn't have anything to do with books.

I was in the library this afternoon, trying to do some research for my writing. I knew that, being late afternoon, there would be lots of kids there. So, I brought along my walkman, put my headphones on, and got to work. Which was fine until some high school kids came in and started....I don't know, they must have been shouting. All I know is, I was listening to Led Zeppelin and I had it up loud (the only way to listen to Zeppelin, as far as I'm concerned), and I could hardly hear my music for the kids and the noise they were making. And did the library workers do anything to get them to quiet down a little bit? Of course not.

I don't have any problem with people talking in the library - I do it myself sometimes - as long as it's kept to a reasonable level. This was not a reasonable level at all. Sheesh.

End of rant.

 

[dwndrgn]

I hate it when that happens! I always tell myself to complain but feel like the veriest prude telling the librarian that 'those young kids are making too much noise...' so I usually just end up moving to another section or leaving altogether. One of the quietest places in our local is the kids section (amazingly enough) it is upstairs and completely separate from the rest. The most quiet place there is the law library but that is almost stifling...

 

[iKwak]

My local library has a small library of books and old PCs.

The neighbor library, which is about 7 miles apart is humongous. It has a plasma screen on the entrance, an escalator inside the library building, a children center that looks like a Disney Store and a separate auditorium for internet access. My jaw fell down. Wow!

 

[dwndrgn]

I want your library! I'll trade you several acres of wetland...

 

[littlemissattitude]

My local library has a small library of books and old PCs.

The neighbor library, which is about 7 miles apart is humongous. It has a plasma screen on the entrance, an escalator inside the library building, a children center that looks like a Disney Store and a separate auditorium for internet access. My jaw fell down. Wow!

iKwak - are you talking about the libraries in Norwalk? The small one sounds like the first one I discovered there, on Alondra isn't it? And the other one sounds suspiciously like the regional library, over in the civic center - although they didn't have all that fancy stuff when I used it. Or have they built an entirely new one? I spent so much time in the regional library when I lived down there. It was basically my home away from home.

 

[Mistress Spider]

Ever since I was little, my grandmother would bring me books from the library. She would just pick some random book that she thought I would like, bring it home, then I would read it. Therefore, I am very used to reading Book II before Book I. Still, it gets on my nerves, because I like to read Book I after Book II, just so I can figure out what's going on.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Hi Mistress Spider, and welcome to the chronicles network!

I guess I'm lucky - never had much of a need for libraries. I never really chased down books that often, so if there was something I was really after, then I'd buy it. You folks are making me feel quite rich! Or maybe you were all simply far more voracious readers?

 

[dwndrgn]

Hi Mistress Spider, and welcome to the chronicles network!

I guess I'm lucky - never had much of a need for libraries. I never really chased down books that often, so if there was something I was really after, then I'd buy it. You folks are making me feel quite rich! Or maybe you were all simply far more voracious readers?

Well, I haven't bought a book with my own money (that doesn't count gift certificates I've won) in over a year...that was why I was so excited a while back when I was planning on buying a book. But it really is a little of both...it is hard to justify paying $8 (for a paperback) that I will read in a day or so (it's been a bad year for us financially). However, I haven't read a lot lately (I'm jonesin' too

) but that is because I've pretty much gone over most of the books in the library I'd like to read. It really is quite small and they probably only get in five new fiction books a month (of which maybe two would be of interest to me) so I'd like to buy newer books that the library just doesn't have - if I could!

I'll be going today though so hopefully they will have either a new book or one of the ones on my list I've made from this site of books I should check out. Wish me luck!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Heh -I will. Simply glad people are using libraries for what they are supposed to be used for!

 

[dwndrgn]

Heh -I will. Simply glad people are using libraries for what they are supposed to be used for!

Well, my luck wasn't too bad, here's what I got:

Lords & Ladies Terry P (all the talk of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg made me want to read about them again and this is the only one they had*)
Starship Titanic Terry Jones - heard interesting things about this one so I picked it up to see what it was about.
Mythago Wood Robert Holdstock - someone, somewhere recommended this one and they finally got it so I picked it up.
Dragon Venom Lawrence Watt-Evans - this is the third in an OK series which I started a while ago so I figured I'd continue.

*I found it in the fiction section instead of the Scifi/fantasy section - our library seems to have a problem with this. Quite often books by the same author, in the same series are filed under the wrong genre - so I've gotten used to checking severral sections out at the same time - browsing is much more fun than using the computer catalog anyway unless I'm in a hurry. Ok, off to read now!