The Elgin library district is among many struggling nationally to find new sources for books and other reading materials resulting from the shutdown of Baker & Taylor, the main supplier of reading materials to public libraries.
After an acquisition deal failed, Baker & Taylor began to lay off employees in October, including most of those working at its distribution center in Momence, and expects to fully cease operations this month, according to Publishers Weekly.
“Baker & Taylor was a major, dominant player in the library world. Libraries relied heavily on B&T due to its long legacy, name recognition and its reliability,” said Natalie Kiburg, spokeswoman for the Gail Borden Public Library District in Elgin.
The company provided excellent service and infrastructure solutions that other firms don’t focus on, such as shelf-ready cataloging, processing and standing orders, Kiburg said.
“This helped significantly with industry-wide issues in the library world, such as understaffing and underfunding,” she said,
As the Baker & Taylor shutdown neared, libraries across the nation started seeing huge delays in getting materials, she said. Gail Borden had to prepare desk staff so they could explain to patrons why there were delays in getting some materials and to offer alternate methods for getting items into their hands, she said.
“We turned a logistical hurdle into a conversation, ensuring that our customers knew their requests were not getting ignored and that we were searching for alternate — and faster — ways to get the materials they were requesting, Kiburg said.
Beyond that, Gail Borden now faces challenges in finding new vendors to supply materials, supplementing collection development and doing the cataloging services previously handled by Baker & Taylor, she said.
“Because we are flexible, we were able to quickly scale existing partnerships with suppliers and establish new partnerships,” Kiburg said. “This ensured that the book pipeline remained open and that the interruptions for our customers were kept to a minimum. While we lost a major vendor, we never lost our expertise and our ability to swiftly adapt.”
Steph Nielsen, Gail Borden’s director of collection development, said her team was ahead of the curve and transitioned some staff to handle critical material curation and cataloging.
“By adding a new cataloger and expanding our team’s involvement, we can control much more of our collection in-house, ensuring we aren’t dependent on the stability of an outside company,” Nielsen said.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, said Robert Moffet, Gail Borden’s division chief of access services. “We haven’t just replaced a vendor,” he said. “We’ve strengthened our own internal infrastructure to better serve our customers.”
Baker & Taylor’s closure is a good reminder that library district staff should be continually monitoring processes and vendors and not relying too heavily on just one company, Kiburg said.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
