Anderson County Library: ‘Tell us what to buy’
If you want a book at an Anderson County library, you can request it or even give it to the staff.
Debate surrounding the library system has centered around removing or restricting access to library books to which county residents might object, a topic that The Courier News has explained in a recent issue.
However, at the July 21 Anderson County Commission’s citizen comments portion, a complaint about the lack of books on electrical engineering and a response explaining how citizens might handle that problem took center stage.
Anderson County Library Board policies include Clinton, Briceville and Norris public libraries, but not the Oak Ridge Public Library.
“I learned electronics from the library,” Oak Ridge resident James Arthur said, speaking of his own childhood. He said he was inspired from his time reading books about electronics as a child to as an adult develop a device to shoot high-speed movies with an electron microscope.
However, he said he went to the Clinton main library last year and found only one book about electric engineering.
“I checked recently, and they still only had that one book, and it says it’s for complete idiots,” Arthur said.
“That would be for me,” County Commission Chairman Tyler Mays said in response.
“We are a community of scientists and engineers, and our library doesn’t have books for scientists and engineers,” Arthur said.
He spoke in favor of choosing Commissioner Anthony Allen for Library Board. While the nominating committee considered him, it and the full County Commission instead chose Commissioner Shain Vowell for the position.
Former Library Board member Carolyn Boswell, a Norris resident, came up to the lectern immediately after Arthur.
“I wanted to tell the gentleman that just spoke that all four of the librarians in the group that the Anderson County Library Board serves are more than happy to order books that are requested,” she said.
One of the books at the center of controversy recently entered the library system due to a patron’s request, she added.
“That’s how the books are collected — by the people in the community requesting them,” she said. “Our librarians do a fabulous job of pulling things together that all the people in the community want.”
Clinton Public Library Director Miria Webb said if people request certain books, they can fill out requests, and forms for these requests are available at the library’s front desk.
“I would say better than 90% of requests get purchased for the collection eventually,” she said. “Sometimes the budget or the availability of items from our vendors slows me down.”
With the leftover budget money, Webb said she used School Library Journal, Booklist, or Bookpage to find new reads for our community using things like starred reviews and high interest subjects. Another staff member looks at bestseller lists to find books.
The Library Board’s web page, however, cautions that the library may choose not to keep specific books and other media it receives or buys.
It’s not just a matter of people requesting to remove them, however. The library system lists the following factors in how it evaluates which books to add or keep:
• Public demand and relevance to the community interest and needs;
• Professional reviews;
• Content and authority, effectiveness or presentation;
• Need for additional or duplicate materials in existing collections;
• Physical limitations of the building;
• Budgetary considerations;
• Availability of material through interlibrary loan and special collections in the area;
• Suitability of the format of the material for library use.
Webb said the library uses a flow chart to look at a gift’s suitability before handing it to the Library Board, which also goes over books to order.
She said the library does not accept encyclopedias or textbooks as donations. Books that don’t end up in the collectio become part of the Friends of the Library Book sale, Webb said.
Teachers can fill out a form to get books relevant to class projects. available.
