The Writing Show (WS): Welcome to the Writing Show. I’m Paula B. My guest today is Nancy O’Neill, Principal Librarian for Reference Services at the Santa Monica Public Library System, where she is responsible for collection development.

Welcome, Nancy, to the Writing Show. It’s a pleasure to have you here.

Nancy O’Neill (NO): It’s a pleasure to be with you.

WS: Let’s talk about how writers can work with libraries to get their books into the hands of readers. Can you tell me first of all, how do libraries select the books they buy?

NO: Well, it depends on the library, but for most public libraries, we rely on journals, on reviews. It could be newspaper reviews, for example. In our area, southern California, we look at The Los Angeles Times. We read their book reviews, we see what their bestsellers list is. We have a rather literate public here, so we of course always look at The New York Times bestseller list. We look at best-sellers lists in Publisher’s Weekly. Library Journal, of course, is something that most librarians will look at, even academic librarians will look at that. Booklist is another source we rely on, and for some of our subject areas, we use things like Choice, which is, I think, more geared toward the academic market. But basically there are many journals and acceptable outlets, such as the newspaper lists, that libraries use to select what their readers want.

WS: Do you ever use sources other than those review journals?

NO: Oh yes, all the time. Again, for example, something like Mysterious Press comes to mind. They do a lot of new mysteries. Those are very popular in public libraries. In other areas, if you’re collecting in automotive, you probably will use publishers’ catalogs. In the legal area, I always look at the West catalogs, or at a lower level, the Nolo Press Catalogs. Generally I think if you’re in an academic institution, you probably rely on those [publishers’ catalogs’] a lot more because you’re collecting in a specific area, and a lot of the things you need for your collection will not make it into one of those more general journals I mentioned first, like Library Journal or Booklist. So if you need a specialized area, you probably know your publishers, and you read their catalogs.

WS: How do you decide when you look at these sources what items are most attractive for you?

NO: Well, every library has its own level. We, for example, describe our library as a “study/working level,” which means we would not buy something that was extremely esoteric in subject. Even if it were a subject we thought our clientele would be interested in, if we’re going to circulate it and it costs $75.00, we’ll certainly think twice about it because that’s a little bit expensive for our budget. So one of the things you always do is look at the price, and you look at the subject. You also look at the author. Does the author have any credibility? And who published it? Is this publisher a reputable publisher who is known for publishing quality work and for presenting a quality product that perhaps will be well formatted, one that the binding will not come apart the first time someone reads it?

WS: So if I’m hearing you right, it very much depends on publisher reputation as well as the subject and author. If an author has gone with a small publisher who isn’t terribly well known or is new, do they have a good chance of getting into libraries?

NO: I’m not sure if I could say “good.” I think they have an equal chance, perhaps, of getting into a library depending on many things. One, does the library specifically need the type of work the author has? Two, has the author received any reviews? Has anyone ever heard of this author? Now, it’s always nice to have someone else’s opinion. A lot of libraries, if they have time, will ask for approval items, so if it’s a small publisher and they can afford it, they might want to send something out on approval. We don’t very often take anything on approval because it just takes too much time to get it and send it back if we don’t want it. We would probably more take a chance and say, “Well, this looks like exactly what I want. The description of it sounds good.” If it’s not a fiction book, you might say, “It has an index. I like the chapter layout, and it’s not spiral-bound or something that we don’t buy for our collection. I’m going to take a chance on it.” And then when you get it, you may say, “Oohh, well, that was $25.00 wasted,” or “Boy, this is good. Who is this press again?” And we’ll look for things in the future from this press.

WS: How many books do you buy a year, and can you break that down into fiction and non-fiction?

NO: Oh gosh. I don’t know how many books we buy a year. Our non-fiction budget may be 60% or 65% greater than our fiction budget. However, you have to consider that non-fiction books on an average probably cost more than fiction books. So if we were saying we would buy more mysteries than [books in] any particular non-fiction subject area, there’s just a real difference there in what you’re doing.

The other thing is that when you’re buying for non-fiction, you expect the items to last longer--not necessarily physically, but you expect them to be in your collection for quite a while. Whereas in fiction, what is popular this year may have its life, and then you get rid of all three dozen copies you bought by the next year. So again it depends on so many factors. But I’ll tell you, your writers, if they know what libraries generally use, then I think they have a much better chance, whether they’re with a major press who’s going to get them into Library Journal, or whether they’re with a smaller press who relies on sending out some sort of nice advertising.

WS: How would you advise writers to conduct that kind of research?

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