Currently, the Director has $10,000.00 a year to spend on collection development. Collection development is the purchase of easy reading, juvenile, young adult, and adult fiction and non-fiction books and audio books, and, to a lesser extent videos, DVDs and music CDs.
It is the current policy of the library director (me) to spend a majority of the money on books and a lesser amount on videos, DVDs and music CDs. The library�s first and most important priority is to provide information to its patrons. Entertainment, while very important, is not our primary goal.
To that end, I, as director, have begun tapering off our video, DVD and music CD purchases. I still purchase them, but I buy less. I try to purchase videos and DVDs of movies that have been generally well-reviewed. I avoid movies whose only redeeming factors are their special effects, large explosions or a particular star. If a patron wishes to watch, for example, Jackie Chan�s �Around the World in 80 Days�, which as described by one critic, "It's as though the crew is traveling through an oversize, even more irritating version of Disney's It's a Small World." ,they can go across the street and rent it from The Little M or they can read Jules Verne�s classic novel, although they might be disappointed to discover that there are fewer explosions and no martial arts experts in the book. And Verne, though an extremely gifted author, is not well known for his sight gags.
MUST REGAIN CONTROL OF MY BRAIN!