On my Audible app, I barely started Geneva, an original debut by Richard Armitage. It wasn’t the book more like audiobook fatigue. When the book was released as a book-book, the format name I used for reading words on my tablet or in my hands, I debated back and forth about buying the book. Thrillers are not my thing. Lately, it’s nonfiction, horror, or the fantastical like Thomas D. Lee’s Perilous Times. (I highly recommend it.) I am not buying those books either. I am watching my money and using my library.
Then it hits me: The submission form.
I filled out the form to recommend the book and submitted it. After pressing send, I realized while Richard proved himself as an actor, he stepped into his new role as an unknown writer for many people. Part of collection development is to research the title, and that means looking at reviews. I filled out the form again, this time attaching reviews from familiar publications like Publisher’s Weekly and the Guardian. Part of submitting a suggestion means you can check the box to be first in line when they get it. Remember Perilous Times? That’s how I got that title out of the library, with the same process.
After hitting submit the second time around, I waited. It took a while, and took comfort in trying. I went into my library account to check the progress of my holds and shuffle around my TBR pile between the library and Christmas gifts from V, the only books not going into the donation pile. The book appeared, and not only are they getting a copy, they are getting four. It’s not four in one branch but in four selected branches. I whooped at the news and found another hold placed on the book. (Double whoop!) The book’s current status is “one order,” and it is a helpful status for juggling my TBR.
The moral of the story? Use the part of the website to suggest purchases and attach book reviews from Publisher Weekly, Kirkus, The New York Times, a *local paper, and when in doubt, ask the library staff for their go-to sources to help their collection development.
*The Winnipeg Free Press, my local paper, has a Saturday book section.
Unpaused Life 