Libraries make plans, based on various factors like best-seller lists
and such, of what books currently on the market would be good to add to
their collection, and budget for a certain number of books or a certain
dollar amount. Now they are presented with books they had NOT planned to
buy (in this case, it sounds like a bunch of back-list books ... and
face it, computer books go obsolete fairly rapidly) and IF they want
them would have to come up with extra money to process them.
I have heard from the author lists that books from a LOCAL AUTHOR to a
LOCAL LIBRARY are sometimes an exception, but in general the libraries
aren't anxious for donations TO GO ON THE SHELVES (donations for the
annual book sale are something else, of course, but that doesn't seem to
fit the idea here).
Jim Hartley
Allen wrote:
On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 15:23 -0500, Jim Hartley wrote:
I don't know about your library, but I belong to several author's groups
and there have been discussions of donating copies of the books we have
written to nearby libraries.
Several people have noted that many libraries are reluctant to take such
donations, because it costs them something like $35 per copy to catalog
and shelve the books ... often more than the cost of buying a new book.
I've wondered if the new books that Sean gets from Prentice-Hall
wouldn't have a wider impact if donated to a library rather than being
given out to an individual at a monthly MHVLUG meeting.
If a library would prefer instead to buy a new book, wouldn't it still
incur the above mentioned cost of cataloging and shelving?
You can try, but don't be disappointed if it doesn't happen - many
libraries ONLY want donated books for the "50 cent book sale" pile.
Jim Hartley
Eric Myers wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, Derek J. Balling wrote:
Free to whomever takes it -- all of it, only -- is seven large boxes
of technical books. The content is 95% O'Reilly books, covering Linux,
Perl, PHP, MySQL, Python, networking, etc., etc., etc. (As an ORA
author, I get one of every title for free for the asking, and I was
pretty generous with the asking).
It seems like this fine collection would do more good in a library.
And since we already meet at a library....
Sean, perhaps you or someone in the group knows who to talk to about
possibly adding these to their collection? They may not know the great
value here, but we sure do, and we could communicate that to them.
And then anybody in the group (with a library card) would be able to
make use of these books.
-Eric
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Feb 3 - Arduino
Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration
Apr 7 - Nagios
--
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_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Feb 3 - Arduino
Mar 3 - Sahana and 7 Years of MHVLUG Celebration
Apr 7 - Nagios
