This newsletter comes out every other Thursday and hopefully provides you with thought-provoking content about the mundane, wacky, and weird. I will be writing until the 75th edition. If you know someone who may enjoy the newsletter, you can share it here.
I love the library. You can get almost any book you want for free. $35 cookbook? No problem, check it out from the library and try a few recipes. If I love it, I'll buy it.
My friend Sam says I am the only person he knows that still goes to the library on a regular basis. Turns out, I'm not alone and there are an estimated 171 million people who still go to the library in the US. I enjoy reading and typically read about 60 books a year and check out 100+ books from the local library every year. Here is a shot I took of my local branch.
I've been surprised by how many books the library has, and on rare occasions surprised when they don't carry a book. For today's topic, we will find out how libraries select books and what it means to "weed" a book. I mostly focus on the San Francisco library, but much of what I learned is applicable to libraries across the U.S.
I reached out to people on the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) admin staff. I was put in touch with Denise Schmidt who is the Head of Collections. She decides what books the libraries should stock.
I interviewed her by phone a few days ago to better understand how San Francisco selects books for its large base of readers. She doesn't deal with publishers, but instead uses “jobbers”. Jobbers buy books in bulk from major publishers and resell them to libraries and bookstores at a discount. Instead of negotiating and partnering with the 15 largest publishers, Denise can go to one jobber.
She said, about 95% of the book in the SFPL circulation comes from a jobber. It was surprising for me to learn that the library almost exclusively places orders for books 2-3 months before they are released. As soon as a book is released to the public, the library has it on their shelves. I was surprised that older books weren'tbought more often. However, since the library has been constantly buying new books for years, they have already purchased the popular book from years ago and most likely still have it. However, when a classic book is made into a new movie, it often has a resurgence, and publishers release new editions. In that case, the new editions are lumped in with all of the other new releases. For example, Dune the Sci-Fi classic is a movie coming out in a few weeks.
The other 5% of books the library buys is a mix of San Francisco-specific books, indie books, and rare old books. They purchase these books from publishers or websites dedicated to rare books.
How did Covid affect the library?
The pandemic forced many libraries to shut down as city funds dried up.
However, San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) came out okay compared to many cities. SFPL's budget comes from property taxes, which stayed high while other taxes (e.g. hotel and business tax) declined. The image below shows the median value of homes in SF.
SFPL maintained their budget and had to adapt what services they could offer despite not being able to physically open a branch. Before the pandemic, physical books made up about 65% of purchases while e-book and audio made up about 35%.
During the pandemic, those numbers flipped, with e-book and audio making up about 75% of purchases. Many SFPL employees were re-assigned to work at food banks or at Covid testing sites.
"Of the City’s $13.2 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2022, $171 million is appropriated for the San Francisco Public Library. SFPL is dedicated to providing free and equal access to information, knowledge, independent learning, and reading for the community".
How does the library decide which books to get rid of?
The local lingo in the librarian's world is "weeding" books out. Buying books is done at the county level, but deciding which books to weed out is done by each branch. If a librarian walks by a book for weeks and notices it hasn't been checked out, they can check the circulation numbers in the system and decide to weed that book out.
Where do the books go?
San Francisco has an unusual law about where books can go once they decide to get rid of them. SFPL is not allowed to donate books to an organization that will then sell the books. For example, they aren't allowed to donate books to Goodwill. As a result, they give books to non-profit orgs like the YMCA or elementary schools. When I pushed Denise on why this was a rule, she confessed she did not know why. She speculated that perhaps there was a corrupt librarian years ago who donated the books to themselves and then sold them. As a result, the city made a law around the library's donation process.
Overall, the SFPL is a great library system and in 2018 won "library of the year". There is a lot of thought that goes into what is on the library bookshelves. I'll keep ordering books ahead of time on the SFPL app, but next time I go in, I'll take a little extra time to peruse the aisles.
🤔What I am pondering
Studies suggest that humans can only have one conversation with up to 4 or 5 people. Any larger group and typically one person is talking most of the time.
On a related note, Seth Godin points out that event tables are usually for 10 people because that is the ideal size to fit all the stuff like breadbaskets on the table. However, having 10 people at a table isolates everyone. If you talk to your left, you are leaving out the person to the right and forget about trying to have a conversation with someone on the other side of the table.
The coolest thing I learned
The human eye is round but our vision is not. Humans' peripheral vision is better horizontally than vertically. Humans evolved out on the plains and when looking out for predator and prey it was more likely the prey would come in from the side than the sky.
Vintage Ad
I am a sucker for vintage ads. If an old ad still resonates, it indicates the message is more timeless. This is a Nike ad from 1977.
Pic of the week
My buddy Sam and I were going for a bike ride and stumbled across the San Francisco Marathon. We biked about 10 miles of the route and took a pic at the end. The streets were closed to car traffic and we were able to ride along with runners and give them words of encouragement.