I often find that when I request a book on Inter Library Loan, my library has to get it from an academic library — even if the book I need is a trade or mass-market book that is intended for a general audience and no more than a few years old. I never quite understood this, because many nearby public libraries should have some of these books. Your comment suggests why this might be happening: The public libraries may have had the books but have already weeded them out.

I think that’s becoming more true of public libraries, especially in urban areas. I know in the large two-county suburban system I used to work for (in another state), items that had not circulated in the past three years were considered for weeding/withdrawal. Space is at a premium.

I think it is less true of academic libraries, since we’re supposed to support research and therefore have to hang on to stuff a bit longer! We have offsite storage for some of our oldest, least requested stuff.

If librarians typically read myriad reviews before buying a book, what if a great book gets only one or two? This seems especially likely to happen with regional books or those from smaller presses.

Will libraries become as market-driven as the publishing industry as a whole? Are they there already? I don’t know the answers, but I think about these questions a lot and am grateful for the responses from librarians.

Of course, sometimes I’m sure that we choose books simply because we, as librarians and readers ourselves, find a topic interesting, or a particular book “speaks” to us. Should there be a requirement for choosing books? I’m not so sure that someone else should regulate how books are chosen by librarians.