Fiction acquisition in libraries

Librarians are not trained in acquisition process : each of them faces his own choice. A survey was conducted about 1 550 titles out of the annual Livres-Hebdo, in order to detect the books acquired in 1986 by ten public libraries of the Seine-Saint-Denis department. Similarly, the survey examines how they have been reviewed in ten different periodicals. It appears that comments are made on 40 % of the production, that critics show a great independance in selecting the book they review and that some publishers are more commented than others : Gallimard comes first, with 15 % of the articles. The part of the budget devoted to fiction acquisition differs from one library to the next : from 6 % to 33 % (without press). The choice of the titles, also unequal, bears on substantial books, with a restricted number in common : only 60 titles bought by all the libraries. Some publishers are over-appearing, five of them providing more than one-third of the titles. The author wishes that librarians share their knowledge and lay stress on book reviews.
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