As you probably know, the Friends of the Library are having their Spring Book Sale at the Main Library on April 9th and 10th. But here is something you might not know: before the donated books go to the Friends to be put in the sale, the library selects a great many of them to go directly into the collection. We get wonderful donated books. Our new head of the cataloging department is amazed at the quality.
Right now 60,000 of the library's 270,000 items, were donations. That is,
22% of the whole collection exists because of the generosity of our users, offering their books (and DVDs, and CDs, and...) for each other to use through the library.
We've been updating the
Library Facts and Statistics page, and temporarily are awash in numbers. Our circulation last year was 464,000 items. That's nearly half a million books out, half a million books back in again--almost a million transactions across the circulation desks. (Then we shelve them so you can find them and check them out again.) Actually last year's circulation was down about 3%. Most of the drop was at La Farge. Bookstop's circulation went up.
Those 270,000 items mentioned above represent 174,000 separate titles.
The Main Library is open 64 hours a week, the three libraries together are open 163 hours a week, and our
catalog, the
databases, and our
web pages are available 24x7.
We have heard through the poetry community that Robert Creeley died this morning in Marfa, Texas. Creeley had New Mexico connections--taught at UNM, lived in Albuquerque and in Placitas in the '60s--and has been a giant of American poetry for the last several decades. Expect to see an outpouring of tributes and memorials.
