Books on Tape and Videotapes at the Jackson District Library

April 1, 2010

After an exhaustive review of several factors and patron usage patterns throughout the county, we made the decision to retire videotapes and books on tape at all branches of the Jackson District Library system. JDL’s Collection Development Team comprised of senior library staff has been analyzing these formats for over two years. During this process, they obtained input from branch staff throughout the district to understand how patrons were using these formats and what new formats they were requesting. In early 2010, the team recommended that we discontinue offering videotapes and books on tape for the following reasons:

• Non-availability of new titles in these formats. Publishers are no longer producing new titles, or in the case of books on tape, are no longer providing replacements for missing or defective pieces of a multi-tape collection;

• Availability of newer formats such as DVDs, Books on CD, Playaways and MP3 CDs that are more affordable and durable;

• Continued decline in circulation of books on tape and videotapes;

• Critical lack of shelving space throughout the district

Libraries throughout the United States continually make decisions to retire older formats and provide newer formats of materials in response to newer technologies and patrons’ changing needs. To illustrate, libraries have discontinued offering long-playing records (LPs) and 8 track tapes. We realize that our decision to retire books on tape and videotapes will undoubtedly affect some of our patrons. We do hope that they will appreciate that this decision is in the overall best interests of the Jackson community.
Our team will review the withdrawn collections to determine if we can order replacements in the other formats, within our budgetary constraints. As is our practice with other withdrawn items, we will be offering these collections to the Jackson community through the various book sales organized by our Friends groups in the near future.

If you have not done so already, we encourage you to check out the exciting new Playaway, which is a pre-downloaded audiobook on a small player. Our libraries also carry audiobooks on CD and MP3 CD and we will shortly be offering a collection of downloadable audiobooks at all our branch libraries. Our staff will be happy to provide you with additional information.
We are strongly committed to providing state of the art library services to residents throughout Jackson County. We thank you for your interest in the Jackson District Library and look forward to your continuing support.

Ishwar Laxminarayan
Director