Posted by Anne M on Wednesday, Oct 27, 2021
You may have heard the news stories listing shortages of paper, ink, cardboard, and shipping container space. Or the ones about labor shortages in warehouses and the shipping industry. And with books sales up 21% from 2019, there is more demand for print books at a time when publishers cannot fulfill their orders. Experts are calling it a "perfect storm" for the publishing industry.
If you've noticed that you are waiting much longer to get a book from us or seen the "on order" notice in our catalog linger with a specific title, this is why. Shifts in supply and demand are impacting libraries and our ability to get the book you want in your hands.
We focus on available stock when buying materials. We order months ahead of release dates and as many copies as we think will meet anticipated interest. We also write our customer service representatives from our vendors directly if we feel a title is unreasonably delayed. These are approaches we've always used, but don't always work if our vendor cannot get the books in the first place. Publishers are pushing back release dates and delaying or cancelling second printings. Libraries across the United States are feeling these shortages. Book stores, including our literary neighbors are impacted too.
Our staff work hard to unpack received items as quickly as possible and we move any titles on hold to the front of the line for cataloging and labelling. You can place a hold in our catalog to get the book as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued patience and hopefully these logistical problems will soon ease.
For more information about the current book crisis, Vox, The New York Times, and NPR have some good pieces explaining the issues in detail.
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About the Author
Anne Mangano has worked for the Iowa City Public Library since 2008, serving as the Collection Services Coordinator since 2013. In this position, she oversees ICPL's collection, including the selection, cataloging, processing, repair, and removal of materials, including the library's digital collections. Anne holds a Bachelor of...
"Fallout" chronicles the writing of John Hersey's "Hiroshima," originally published in the August 31st, 1946 issue of "The New Yorker." The article chronicled the experiences of six survivors of the United States' dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. What is now seen as a standard text, assigned reading in many high schools, may never have been written. Hersey faced an uphill climb to report the story. There was the United States government and its limitations on where journalists could go and what they could report, as well as their denial of long-term health effects, such as radiation sickness. Also, how do you report this story to an American public that is ready to move on after a decade of war information? Every day they saw images of bomb-out cities and read statistics of the dead and the wounded in the newspapers. They spent years seeing the Japanese as an enemy. How could Hersey make this story resonate? Blume provides a fascinating account of how Hersey struck a chord. If you are a reader of "The New Yorker," this book provides great insight on the inner workings of the magazine during the 1940's. -Anne M