Library Request Form
May 5th, 2007Yesterday I stopped by ChicagoWriter.com which is the home of ChicagoWriter Books, Mary Ellen Waszak, Publisher. Ms. Waszak had recently proposed an idea about cross-pollination on the forum of the Chicago Writers Association and I was curious about her and her company.
Anyway, I took a spin around the site and discovered something really nifty. A Library Request Form.
“Can’t find a ChicagoWriter book in your public or academic library?
“Nearly 200,000 books are published each year and libraries don’t have enough staff to keep up with all of them. Most will respond to a request from a library patron to purchase a book.
“Click on a book cover or book title to display a library book request form for that book. Print it out, fill in your personal information and give it to your reference or acquisitions librarian.”
Those instructions were followed by cover images of seven books. Those were followed by a listing of the titles. Clicking on either the cover or the title will produce the appropriate form.
It works like this:
 |
PARK RIDGE: A Senior Center Murder |
Click to see it in action on ChicagoWriter.com
| Return to or visit Cheryl Hagedorn's web site |
I live in a very small town (400) in a county with five towns (three smaller than mine) and a total of about 12,000 people. We have a library system with four very small libraries including the one on the reservation. They stock all three of my books as a local author. Any member can order these books and they are sent to their local branch for them to check out. I have no idea if any have ever been checked out, except I once went to the web site and tried to check one out and it wasn’t available.
The library has a policy, no sales of any sort on premises. Also all books are bought by a committee who are four very straight laced women, appointed by County Commissioners, creating much controversy.
I think my comment was, “I’m not sure if they do any good as far as book sales go. Do people just check them out instead of buying?”
Comment by Nolan Lewis ? May 5, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Sounds to me then like the Library Request Form would be a great thing to put on your website. Then people all over the country could fill out the form and take it into their local libraries. You could even do something like Jeff Markowitz is doing — trying to get his book in at least one library in every state.
Comment by Cheryl ? May 5, 2007 @ 7:27 pm