[Publib] Television Series DVDs

[Rossin, Candy]

Back when TV shows were just starting to come out on DVD, my predecessor
purchased a lot of them, and I've finished most of the runs of these
series that he started (although I did pull a few from the shelves that
weren't as popular instead of buying more seasons).

Now that every show (it seems) is available on DVD, I've changed our
practice. I will buy a premium cable channel show (Showtime, HBO) if
anyone asks for it (sometimes I buy multiple copies if the reserve list
gets too long).  I figure that even though most people in our community
have cable, not everyone subscribes to the premium channels.

I keep track of requests for basic cable and network shows (both current
and older shows), and if I get a fair number of requests (6 or so) for a
title within a short period of time I'll get the show.  Once I start a
series, I continue to buy future seasons as they become available.  I've
been keeping track of requests for almost 3 years (I use an Excel
spreadsheet) and since I started, I've gotten requests for nearly 150
basic cable and network shows.  Of those, I've only bought 9 based on
the number of patron requests.

We generally put up to 5 discs in a case and count it as one item, often
a whole season will fit into one case.  If a season has 6 discs, we
split it into 2 items (3 discs/package).  DVDs go out for one week.
Each case counts as one item no matter how many discs are in it
(cardholders may check out 10 DVDs).  A quick check of our catalog shows
that we have around 500 TV show "items" (over 100 different shows).
Yes, I've had to replace a few seasons of various shows because of
missing/damaged discs, but not as many as I expected (occasionally I can
get a single replacement disc from Midwest Tape). 

When I started selecting DVDs, I had a lot of discussions with others in
this library and from other libraries about how to control the
collection.  We had a number of library users who were used to us buying
every TV show they asked for, but now I think we've trained them to
understand that we can't buy everything.  It's hard because any show
will probably be popular and will accrue long lists of reserves, but we
can't spend our whole budget on TV shows.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck! 

Candy Rossin, Collection Specialist
Arlington Heights Memorial Library
500 N. Dunton Ave.
Arlington Heights, IL  60004
phone: 847/870-4310
e-mail: crossin at ahml.info
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