[Publib] Re: Nation wide public library - nope

[Andy Barnett]

It comes down to a matter of scale.

We are in a multi-county shared system. Three million items in the catalog. 
Items are delivered between libraries in 2-3 business days if on shelf, 
with next day a real possibility. Six day a week delivery. That is 
basically Amazon speed.

We supply 80% of our needs from our collection, but get 20% of our 
circulated materials from elsewhere in the system.  Our local bookstores 
can't do better than that. True Outerlibrary loan (from outside our shared 
system) amounts to  about .2% of our circulation. Not every library in our 
system gets as much from their local collection, since some are 
considerably smaller.

This is a good case of Satisficing. The library collection is good enough 
to satisfy most of our patrons' needs. The system collection is also good 
enough to satisfy almost all the rest. Combined, they are sufficiently good 
to be satisfying. Our main failing is bestsellers. In most library 
settings, a bookstore or Amazon can deliver a bestseller faster. Rental 
collections help, but that is pretty much a constant problem.

Can this be scaled up to cover a large state or the nation? Not really. 
Transportation costs rise with distance. Without doing any number 
crunching, it seems to best size for a shared system is constrained by 
distance rather than population. Densely populated areas can have small 
physical systems that cross a barrier into satisficing territory, while 
those of us in more rural settings need more area to gain critical mass. 
The goal is a large enough shared system so that needs are met within the 
system and Outerlibrary loan kept to truly rare items.

Chasing after a perfect solution in this case (super catalog with 
nationwide delivery) just isn't a rational use of resources. Compared to 
satisficing regional shared systems, it would explode the costs, while only 
marginally improving satisfaction. Instead, we should focus on developing 
shared systems and delivery networks that make financial sense. No library 
should be disconnected from its neighbors or cut off from their 
collections. Sadly, this is a future that is very unevenly distributed at 
this point.