Re: [Videolib] More Midwest Tapes Fun--Slightly OT

First off, I must say I am a huge fan of audiobooks and think Recorded
Books makes a quality product, their reps are fantastic and I do have a
standing order plan with them but, my AV budget at this small/med public
library is dismal and I must stretch it anyway I can, that means I will
buy retail priced audiobooks from other vendors. Recorded Books will
only replace discs for 1 year from purchase for free, after that it is
about $8.00 per disc.

The bad thing is I have no say on which audiobooks I would like -
Recorded sends what they produce each quarter and that's that. (I don't
know why they cannot let us have a choice and produce to customer demand
as the other big companies do.) I use Recorded because of the
exclusives but hate paying the ridiculous prices.

Jeanette Francini

Head of Collection Management

Lucy Robbins Welles Library

95 Cedar Street

Newington, CT 06111

860-665-8714

We must be the change we wish to see in the world. Gandhi

________________________________

From: videolib-bounces@lists.berkeley.edu
[mailto:videolib-bounces@lists.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of Danielle
Phillips
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 4:29 PM
To: videolib@lists.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [Videolib] More Midwest Tapes Fun--Slightly OT

As an FYI about the retail vs. rental DVD discussion, I talked to my B&T
rep. and according to him, Fox will not allow libraries to buy retail
editions. Paramount, however, will.

Recorded Books prices are ridiculous! We have a pretty good
relationship with them and their reps. are fantastic, but the prices are
out of control expensive. Their line is that the replacement policy is
so good, the library eds. are worth it. Not so to me, but some
librarians do fall for this.

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 1:20 PM, Jessica Rosner <maddux2014@gmail.com>
wrote:

As pointed out long ago here putting "not for sale to libraries" or
something like that on boxing is about as valid as saying

"not available to St. Louis Cardinal fans " ( even if I would be in
favor of that) or "not available to people with blue eyes".

For the uninitiated are RB sold on Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc ?

FYI a semi related article

http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=library+audio+books&src
hst=cse

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Jaeschke, Myles
<mjaesch@tulsalibrary.org> wrote:

So those of you that have been following the retail v. rental dilemma
may find this latest issue interesting as well. As many of you probably
know Midwest Tapes has been selling books on CD from most of the major
distributors for about a year or two now. They provide retail editions
of many books on CD that are made available from Recorded Books.
Recorded books will not sell their retail editions to public libraries
and insist that we purchase a library edition (at a much more expensive
cost). Meanwhile Midwest Tapes has made it easy for a PL to purchase
these retail editions.

Apparently this has upset RB to the point that they have started to
silkscreen the CDs for their retail editions with the words "Not for
Sale to Libraries". REALLY?! Not for sale to libraries? Get real.
Sounds like scare tactics to me. Sad thing is that this has the
potential to upset public library customers. They may wonder why a
library is circulating a CD that specifically says it's not for sale to
us. It most likely will scare some systems into continuing to purchase
the overpriced library edition. Keep in mind these are the EXACT same
recordings-just packaged differently. Library editions may offer
replacement discs at no charge or a reduced charge while a retail
edition obviously would not. That is not really an incentive enough for
me to want a library edition.

Midwest Tapes seems to be upset as well-they have filed a lawsuit
against Recorded Books because of this practice. I have a copy of the
brief if you are interested in the suit in further detail but it is a
bit too big to send over the listserv (4MB). Now it may turn out that
RB can print whatever they please on their discs, but I for one do not
like the tactic. My thoughts are if you offer a product in the
marketplace at a "retail" price you have got to expect that libraries
will want to make their purchase at this price point. Don't scare us
into thinking that we are doing something illegal by purchasing a
consumer edition.

End of Rant...

Best regards,
Myles Jaeschke

Tulsa City-County Library System

Media Collection

VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of
issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic
control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in
libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve
as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel
of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video
producers and distributors.

VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of
issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic
control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in
libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve
as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel
of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video
producers and distributors.

-- 
Danielle Phillips
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VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
Received on Tue Oct 20 06:37:41 2009