[Publib] Book buying policy

[John]

Has anyone else had folks emailing your website suggesting titles to purchase?  Who are not patrons?  And the books (title or author) cannot be found in Books in Print?  Had another one tonight.  I'm a little leery--what, is this the author in disguise?  The author's wife?  Sister?  ...  Do you ignore these requests as I typically do? 

>>Yes, this has happened to us, and we ignore them.  Most of the e-mails look legitimate, except that a certain paranoia has set in amongst us all about e-mail that looks legit...and yet, if odors could emanate from a computer--and I suppose they can, if a machine catches fire or some internal whatchamacalit goes haywire--they would smell decidedly fishy.  And it always happens at the reference desk, where our one-size-fits-all, generic Alpha Park Library e-mail address is.  Which sometimes I wish was *not* posted for G/god and everybody to see, but what I wish (backside of hand melodramatically placed to forehead, soap-opera-ish muzak playing plaintively in the background, woe is me, etc.) is of no consequence, lowly worm/public servant that I am.  (Hmmm..."Lowly Worm" was a character in at least one Richard Scarry book that I read *at least* 5,432,612 times to my child, back before he decided to cast off books for Lego and fishing.)

John of Alpha Park PLD in Bartonville, IL