My guest posting at the Shelf Space blog is drawing to a close --
My last post is a continued discussion of ARCs, this time looking at ARCs and library collections.
A sneak peak:
On a professional library listserv, a librarian justified adding ARCs to her permanent collection because low budgets meant fewer materials. I wonder—as budgets continue to fall, with other people adopt this "but I cannot afford the final book" attitude? And really, what's the harm? It's just a few typos, right? Isn't putting books—even if they are ARCs—into the hands of customers the most important thing?
Go read the whole thing and let me know -- would you put an ARC in a formal library collection? Have you ever checked out a book only to discover it's an ARC?
© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
4 comments:
Absolutely not. Never.
I've never added an ARC to my collection nor have I ever checked out a book only to discover it was an ARC. (I have passed them on to other librarians, thrown them away, AND given them to students who saw them on my desk, but adding it to the collection is a no-no.)
I've seen a couple ARCs in the library before... and, come to think, this was before I knew both that they weren't supposed to be shelved AND that they weren't necessarily identical to the final versions in actual word content. Hmm, I checked one out once, and I didn't care for the book much-- now I wonder if it just wasn't done being edited!
--reader for whom OpenID is not working
I recently had a big discussion with my library system about this. We have many smaller libraries who seem to think that going to ALA and picking up ARCs is a great way to stock their collections. I asked the library system to take a proactive stand against ARCs in the shared catalog. Nope.
So I don't have them in my library's collection, but many libraries in our area do. I'll be sharing your articles with the group in the hopes of getting this changed though!
Tasha, I'm curiuos as to how their logic for inclusion stands up in the face of the poor physical quality and the lesser literary quality (because of typos, etc. and other specific language).
As I mentioned in a comment at ForeWord, what other corners do these libraries cut? Because it does, I think, send a message -- they will bend the rules. What about copyright? Licensing agreements? Etc?
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