7 October 2025 Cancelling orders with one provider and moving them to another provider.

 

Monday there was news that the Baker and Taylor Book company was closing its distribution Center in Momence, IL. This has been the preferred vendor for the library. The ordering system is a card system. The staff puts patron requests on index cards with all the appropriate information for the Director to evaluate the resource. If the resource is worthy of shelf space an order is created with the vendor. The card is placed in the ordered file and is pulled when the book has been received. 

A report of the open orders ran, and the Director looked at cancelling some of the older orders that were over two months old without being completed. Pulled the cards from the file that were going to be cancelled.  Went in the vendors program and cancelled the open orders.

The orders that were cancelled were then looked at on a different vendors ordering website. The Director evaluated each book as we looked it up in their system. This was really a good learning experience seeing what factors were involved in ordering. Some of the key items included:

• ·         Looking at the reviews to see if it had a favorable rating.
• ·         The size of the book and number of pages.
• ·         Was it part of a serial.
• ·         Relevance to the general appeal of the library’s patrons.
• ·         Appeal of the book cover and graphics.

We also looked at other libraries and saw how many times it had been checked out. If there was a surplus of copies it might be better to do an interlibrary loan versus purchasing the volume.

As we were going through this decision process the orders were being created on the other vendors website. 

As any of the staff can put in a request for a specific book, DVD, Playaway, etc. It was very interesting to see how the final decision on the resource was made.  This is the essence of  knowing the patron to make the right decisions for the valuable shelf space.

The last hour was working on the background data for the upcoming strategic plan process. Looking at the demographics of the Lillie M. Evans Library District. Looking at the changes in the population between the 2010 population and the 2020. There was a decrease in population that caused a loss of revenue from the per capita grant.  Also looking at Demographics, top employers, Average commute to work, Median household income, and ethnicity of the district. One item that popped out was the changes in the age ranges of the residents between the two census profiles.

As we are in a Government shutdown, a lot of the site was having issues. Looked at associated sites beside the census pages. Utilizing the State Library, Tri County Regional planning and Princeville, IL websites.

PLA Forces: Force 4 Asset driven impact. The shutdown of Baker and Taylor definitely had an asset impact. As the main distributor for the library it was a cost factor to cancel all the orders. Look for new providers that were accepting public libraries. The Director found a new provider that was able to work with. The financials will see a little increase to the library. Seeing the steps it took to make the switch was a very valuable lesson.

Force 3 Building Community. The background info for the strategic plan saw some changes to the demographic of the community. An expected influx of new residents was not been realized. This view brought up a few items that needed focused with the library board and the community partners. Valuable information for the joint meeting in January.

Work total 6 hours                  Semester total 40