Purchasing Books for the Library

At some point in time (most likely every year), a librarian has to purchase books for the school or library. But how do you know what books to buy and where to buy them? I’ve ordered from a few different vendors and I’ve started to make my decisions on who will be my main vendors. Partially by the types of books they have and partially from the customer service I get.

How do I know what to buy?

One thing is you have to know your district policies, your students, and your teacher needs.

Policies

Most school districts (and public libraries) have policies on what can be purchased for the library. My district wants books that are age appropriate, peer reviewed, and support curriculum. There are a lot of places to get peer reviews, the ones I’ve used are Kirkus and School Library Journal. I can most often find those on Titlewave (which I’ll talk about under places to purchase from).

Students

I encourage my students to tell me when there is a book they want. I also tell them that this doesn’t guarantee that I will purchase the book. Most of the books that my students have asked for have not been appropriate for an elementary library. I do buy them if they are. I also try to keep an eye on what types of books they’re checking out and purchase more of that type. For example, my students love horror books so when I made my purchases this year, I made sure to choose a lot of horror books.

Teachers

I know my district purchases curriculum that they require the teachers use. This makes it difficult to get teachers to check books out of the library. I have been working on purchasing non-fiction books that align with the curriculum and am planning to make a list of them for teachers. One thing I can suggest is being aware of the standards that your teachers are working on. You can’t curate books for every standard, but pick a few to work on and make sure your teachers are aware that the books can easily be checked out. (You might even make sure you know what standards they are teaching and then deliver the books to the classroom.) And always, always ask your teachers if there are any books they want or standards they want books for.

Where do I purchase books?

Your district will probably have a list of vendors they don’t work with or don’t allow you to purchase from. My district doesn’t allow us to purchase preview books or from Amazon. This means I had to find approved vendors.

Titlewave

We have Destiny as our management system so of course we can purchase from Titlewave. One advantage to that is that if you have Destiny, you can run a Titlewise report and load it into Titlewave. Then as you search for books, Titlewave will tell you if you already have the book in your library. Titlewave does offer processing in addition to purchasing books so it takes less time from you to have the books on the shelves.

Flutterbee

Flutterbee is a group of publishers including Bearport Publishing, Bellwether Media, Jump!, and Kaleidoscope Books. These are all age appropriate for elementary school. The books are also bright and eye-catching. They do only offer non-fiction books, but it’s good to have a source for those. You can arrange for processing most of the time. I purchase through a vendor for Flutterbee so my processing is taken care of. Also Flutterbee offers free books if you spend enough money (typically one thousand dollars) which helps you increase your collection. And you get to choose which books you want.

Gumdrop

This is another choice for non-fiction books, many of the same ones that Flutterbee offers. They will send a representative to your school if you request it and that person will help you choose which books you want. You can also earn free books from Gumdrop, but you don’t get to choose the ones you want.

Libraria

Libraria is a new source for me. I tried it out this year because I met the representative at GLMA and really liked her. I have to admit that I wasn’t super fond of the company though. I found their website confusing and I ended up with a lot of paperback books that I don’t particularly like for my library. They are very personable, but I just wasn’t pleased with the service.

Overall, where you order from absolutely depends on your preference and what your district allows. These are just companies that I have purchased from since I became a librarian and my opinions of them. Good luck purchasing books for your library.