Kristi Floyd & Rhonda Kuiper – Getting Your Book into Libraries

On December 2nd, 2010 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with Austin area librarians Kristi Floyd and Rhonda Kuiper about how librarians pick their books for the patrons at general (“district”) and school libraries. Kristi and Rhonda have experience in working with requirements and procurement for Young Adult and Juvenile audiences including teens and tweens. We had a wide ranging discussion including:

From what sources do librarians buy the books exactly?
What is the importance of book covers to library patrons?
How can local authors get involved in speaking at libraries and schools?
What review sources do librarians consult?
Under what circumstances do libraries accept books donated by authors?
How does patron input work into book purchasing?
How can inter-library loans trigger a book purchase?
Are bibliographies and indexes really that important to non-fiction?

Kristi Floyd

Rhonda is a Part-time Reference Librarians who also has worked in the library at Round Rock High School in Austin Texas for the past five years. Rhonda is currently in charge of our Tween and Teen Programming at Westbank, and next month she will add Reference Manager to her bag of tricks! She brings significant school library experience to our author conversation.

Kristi Floyd, is a librarian at the Westbank Community Library District in Austin Texas for the past five years–including 1 year as a sub and four years as the Programs and Children’s Librarian. She coordinates and organizes all of their Programming, as well as selects all Juvenile material for their collection–from Picture Books to items for Teens. Both librarians have input into the Teen selection.