Dearest Voracious Readers,
Most people probably don't give much thought to how all these glorious books end up in the library. Well, I'm here to give you the scoop. Introducing our magnificent collection development team!
Diana Wenger, whose official title in additional to duties as "MADL Book Fairy" is our Youth Services Coordinator. Her partner in crime book selecting is August Kulas who is also the librarian at the mighty Ravenna Branch. Together they form the super awesome kids selection duo. Every picture book, easy reader, juvenile fiction and nonfiction book, board book and juvenile graphic novel is carefully selected by these two wonderful librarians-for all the branches in MADL! And the Bookmobile! And the Outreach Van! So, if you ever wander into Ravenna while August is working or by Diana's desk at admin and they are staring intently at their computers, chances are they are evaluating which lucky branch gets the latest copy of Dog Man (or how many copies they get) or deciding which branch that copy of Crouton: One Cat's Adoption Tale is going to end up at.
On the adult side, yours truly (who is also the District Manager of the Norton Shores and LVPD branches), gets the joy of deciding which adult fiction books get ordered and which branch they are going to. My counterpart is Philip (District Manager of the North Muskegon and Laketon Township branches) who makes the call on all of our adult nonfiction titles for all of our branches
Having been on this team for quite some time, the four of us have become experts in our respective areas of what readers at each of the MADL branches are gobbling up and alternately, what is gathering dust and needs to be sent elsewhere. Once we make our choices, our carts are sent to our Collection Development Manager and Assistant Director of Operations who review them every Friday and send them on to Ingram to be fulfilled. Once they arrive at our headquarters our processing team gets them ready (barcodes, branch dots, spine labels) and off they go into delivery and to their new homes.
So, there you have it! The mystery of how all these books get here is solved! Stay tuned next time for a behind the scenes look at the adult team's ordering routine.
From L to R: Diana Wenger, August Kulas, Holly Pelkey, Philip Croff
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