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Having a knowledgeable librarian selecting new purchases is almost always a wise idea. However, additionally allowing certain patrons the right and privilege to select which books and media the library will purchase can give a better sample of what will actually be popular.

Would basing the selection of patrons for the board solely on circulation statistics yield a stable, well-represented board? Selecting at random might get a better sample of patrons, but it would be difficult to gauge their interest without more data.

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So far I am keeping an eye out for patrons who actively use the collection I manage. I then strike up a conversation about them to discover their needs. – user130 May 24 '12 at 23:10
@user130 That's a great idea. How about for a larger population of people, on the order of hundreds or thousands, though? – jonsca♦ May 24 '12 at 23:12
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I'd love to see this idea applied to non-patrons. There are so many people who don't find it worthwhile to go to the library. Why not? Is it too far away/not on a bus line? Is there not enough parking? Is it easier to watch Netflix than borrow DVDs? Is the library failing to provide services they value? Do they fear deportation if registering for a card uncovers an irregularity in their paperwork? In other words: what's going on with the "dark matter" of our universe? They're out there, and we're not interacting with them. Why not? – Ben Ostrowsky May 25 '12 at 18:20
@BenOstrowsky An excellent point. It still goes back to, though, how would you select the non-patrons to participate? – jonsca♦ May 25 '12 at 18:49
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That reduces to a solved problem, if you'll pardon my math. There are shelves bulging with information on sample selection; you could branch the survey so that the second question begins with either "Excellent! We'd like to know more about how you view the library and how we could become worth your time." or "Excellent! We'd like to know about the ways you use the library already and ask you about some other services you might not already be using." – Ben Ostrowsky May 25 '12 at 19:08
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At PLA this year, Joan Frye Williams and George Needham addressed the best ways to get community input (Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Meaningful Community Engagement). Using surveys was bottom of the list of choices - when you ask individuals for input, you get idiosyncratic information. Their suggestion, which would apply to collection development as well as any library service, is to talk to groups of people or individuals who represent groups of people. Instead of asking John Doe who happens to come into the library a lot what books he wants, ask the head of the local home-school association, the chairpersons of local HOAs, the local environmental group, area PTA presidents, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, area book clubs. These people can tell you what is on folks' minds. Individual library users, as Tatjana noted, will usually submit their personal choices through the library's request system.

The talk by Joan and George will be presented as a free webinar by Infopeople on June 12, 2012: http://infopeople.org/training/tell-me-something-i-don%E2%80%99t-know. I highly recommend it.

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At our library, any Patron may suggest books for acquisition through a request form available directly from the home page.

In his request, the patron can choose if he wants to be noticed about acquisition, and if he wants to borrow the book once it's available.

The librarian responsible for that field of interest checks the request:

  • The book might already be available at our library, and the patron didn't try the catalog or was unsuccessful in his search.
  • The book might be available at a sublibrary, but we might still decide to buy another copy.
  • The book might be available at another library in town - we might still decide to buy another copy, but chances are the patron gets informed where he could find the book.
  • The book might already be in acquisition.

If he decides to buy a copy of that book, the patron gets informed if he wanted to, and the order gets processed further.

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Your answer was great, but the other answer brought up an interesting point about non-patrons, which I think might be useful to readers of the question in the future... – jonsca♦ May 29 '12 at 10:51

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