New Library Books: Shouldn't we know about them?
 

How can we find out what new books have recently come in to the Sumter County Library system? Who knows other than the person who requested the book and the library administration?

My suggestion is that the library post these books, by category, online.
So, if someone at any of the many libraries requests a new book, we all will know about it (not the person's name, just the fact that the book was requested). Then if the book actually comes in to the system, we will know about that too.

How about that.

They do that at the Lake County Library System. http://www.mylakelibrary.org/news/ne...se.aspx?id=873

It would be helpful, but I very much doubt it's going to happen. Many of the books wearing "New" labels at the library are at least two years old.

Looking at your link it seems like they do it just for novels. How about science books or music books etc. Where are the requests for those?

I have requested certain books that were not available in the library system. Some one would write up the request and then I would never hear about it again. Six months or a year would go by and I would never hear about it.

It seems as though it's all done secretly. It seems like, in their opinion, the public has no right to know. So we don't know if there is bias in what gets ordered. Maybe I'm wrong but I think novels get priority. In Belvedere, novels outnumber everything else by far. So, if you happen to be interested in science, your out of luck. They only devote a very limited amount of space to science.

Maybe sharing with the Library will accomplish more than posting on TOTV.
Director Robert Harden sumtercolib@spiritcom.net

I did that already.

They would probably only do that for high demand books like novels. The Lady Lake Public Library does have non-fiction books on the New Shelf. Not sure how old these are. With the very limited resources in public libraries , they usually will get the books they expect will circulate the most.

Have you checked on new E books for Sumter County?? I assume they have these?

Good suggestion, but don't forget that the operation of the Sumter library has bee outsourced to as outside contractor. Good luck getting a change like that.