Series Keeper Update

 

The webpage for the Series Keeper project has now been updated to reflect all of the signed agreements that have been returned to us.

There are 92 series being kept at this point by 41 different libraries!

There is also a wish list of 54 series still looking for a keeper. (Including the Mary Russell mysteries which I personally find a bit troubling.)

If your library wants to volunteer to be the keeper of one of the wish listed series please complete the agreement form and return it (in paper, please!) to NHAIS Services.

On the "keeping a series" tab of the webpage you will find some tools we hope will be useful to you as participants in this project:

• a list of kept series organized by library (so you can check that you are signed up for what you thought you committed to)
• a list of kept series organized by author (so you can check it when you are weeding your collections to see what might be wanted by the series keeper).
  
• a label that you can print on Avery 5163 or equivalent label stock to attach to books you have agreed to keep (both for promotion of the project and to protect the book from overly-enthusiastic weeders)
  

Series Keeper Volunteers - Watch for a Mailing

All the libraries who indicated that they could be the Keeper of a Series will be getting envelopes from the NHSL on the van in their next delivery. Enclosed are agreement forms for the titles that we are asking you to keep. In some cases there are several and you are welcome to select as few or as many as you are comfortable with from the batch you were sent. There are directions included in the envelopes about how to let us know which titles you cannot keep at this point. It would be much appreciated if you return the signed forms as quickly as possible so we can get this project set up.

Once we have gotten all the agreements back there may be a second set of envelopes going out to cover titles that the first library wasn't able to commit to at this point. 

As the volunteers from the survey confirm which titles they will keep we will update the website list of who is keeping what.

When we have heard back from everyone we sent a mailing to we will also update the "wish list" on the Series Keeper page. At that point we will invite libraries that didn't complete the initial survey to volunteer to keep a title from the wishlist, or another one that hasn't found a keeper yet. We will have a way for libraries to add titles to the wish list in the future, but to begin with it will just be the ones that were mentioned in the survey.

Some things that came up in the survey comments:

• Labels for books -- a couple of people commented that they will need to mark the books they are keeping so over-eager weeders don't discard them. There is a document at the bottom of the "being a series keeper" tab of the website that you can print on label stock to do this. Feel free to create your own if you want, but if you are looking for a quick and easy option one is available.
  
  
• Length of the commitment -- there were some questions and some suggestions about how long libraries are committing to keep the series they volunteered for. The expectation is that libraries will keep their chosen series in perpetuity. If things change and they cannot keep it any more they are expected to let NHSL know BEFORE they discard any of the titles so a new home can hopefully be found.
  
  
• Donations of kept titles -- several people raised the issue of donating weeded copies of books in kept series to the library that is keeping the series. We hope this will happen and to encourage it the list of kept series on the website will include an email link to the contact person at the library that is keeping each series -- if you are discarding copies in good condition from series please check the list to see if that series has a keeper and contact the library to see if they want your extra copies. Posting to the Yardsale list is a very inefficient way to do this -- please contact the keeper libraries directly when you have donations to offer. The YardsaleNHAIS listserv is the appropriate place to put a request for a particular title you need to fill a gap in a series you are keeping.
  

 

Update on the Series Keeper Survey

There have been quite a few responses already to the Series Keeper Start-up Survey! To give those of you who have not have filled it out yet an idea of how the project is taking shape  I want to share this list of the series that have been mentioned so far. When the survey closes there will be a full compilation with links to details on each series--this is just a sneak peek at basic data. 

There were some responses that were not as useful as they could have been. I want to share those so that hopefully future responses can be easier for us to work with:

• "Any Series by Cassandra Clare" -- there are a LOT of these, please be specific about the series you want/are offering to keep.
• "Any James Patterson series" --again, we need specifics, there are 40+ of these series and unless you are offering to keep all of them (which seems unlikely) we need to know which one you want to claim. The willingness to be flexible is appreciated, but logistically it complicates things for us if you don't indicate a specific series.
  
• "Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan" -- this is specific, but it is unclear -- it could be the 12 volume manga series, or it could be any of several series of novels by Darren Shan set in the Cirque du Freak world. 

Here are the specific series mentioned so far:

• #1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
• Alex Delaware, Johnathan Kellerman
• Alpha and Omega (Mercy Thompson), Patricia Briggs
• Alphabet Series, Sue Grafton
• Aubrey Maturin,    Patrick O'Brien
• Blossom Street,    Debbie Macomber
• Bregdan Chronicles, Ginny Dye
• Bruno: Chief of Police Series, Martin Walker
• Cork O'Connor, William Kent Krueger
• Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J Maas
• Crescent City Series, Sarah J Maas
• Flavia de Luce, Alan Bradley
• Gaslight mysteries (Sarah Brandt/Frank Malloy),    Victoria Thompson
• Hamish McBeth, M.C. Beaton
• Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly
• Holly Barker, Stuart Woods
• Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
• In Death series, J.D. Robb
• Infernal Devices, Cassandra Clare
• Inspector Gamache/3 Pines, Louise Penny
• Jack Reacher, Lee/Andrew Child
• Joe Gunther series, Archer Mayor
• Joe Pickett, CJ Box
• Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
• MARCH graphic novel series, John Lewis and co.
• Meg Langslowe, Donna Andrews
• Mystery Collection (Black Leatherbound Book Set), Agatha Christie
• Nodd's Ridge, Tabitha King
• Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
• Ruth Galloway series, Elly Griffiths
• Sharpe series, Bernard Cornwell
• Stephanie Plum, Janet Evanovich
• Stone Barrington, Stuart Woods
• Teddy Fay, Stuart Woods
• The Tea Shop Mysteries, Laura Childs
• Throne of Glass, Sarah J Maas
• Warrior Cats, Erin Hunter
• Will Lee, Stuart Woods
• Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski
• Women's Murder Club, James Patterson

The Series Keeper Project

Image by Freepik

I am very pleased to be launching Series Keeper, a new voluntary project for NHAIS ILL System participating libraries! Several NH librarians helped Mindy Atwood and I put this project together and their help and advice is greatly appreciated.

It is evident that it is impossible for one library to be self-sufficient. Sharing of library resources is essential for adequate and effective library service. The purpose of the Series Keeper Program is to help alleviate space concerns in member libraries while keeping some older and complete series available to library patrons via the NHAIS interlibrary loan system.

In the same way that our ILL agreement attempts to ensure that not only the larger libraries are burdened with the majority of ILL requests, the Series Keeper program will attempt to recruit a variety of sizes of libraries to participate. Each library has their own unique collections and readers, so the program should capitalize on and promote that uniqueness.

A Series Keeper member library is a library that elects to keep a complete series of a particular author and publicize that fact to other member libraries, so these materials may be loaned via the NHAIS ILL system.

A book series, for the purposes of this project, is more than two books with the same main character/s, set in approximately the same venue, with a chronology and all published under the name of the same author or authors.

Initially this project will include only adult and young adult fiction series (any genre). Holdings may be in regular print, large print, or any combination.  Audio cd versions are also encouraged if the keeper library maintains a physical audio-book collection.   In the future the project may be expanded to include additional reading levels and series types (nonfiction, graphic novels, etc.) if everything goes smoothly with the initial launch and there is interest from libraries in these additional series types.

Each library that participates in the NHAIS ILL system may choose to be a Series Keeper library. The director of a Series Keeper library will be asked to sign an agreement committing their library to the project and containing the specific terms (listed below). A renewal agreement will be sent out periodically by the NHSL (not more than annually or, when there is a change of library director), asking the library to recommit to keeping their chosen series.

Responsibility for management of the Series Keeper Program will be part of the NHAIS ILL System and as such will be coordinated by the NH State Library.  The NHSL will maintain a webpage, based on the signed agreements received, that provides information about which libraries commit to which author’s series/materials with current contact information, a wish list of series in need of a home, and information on how to be a Series Keeper. The success of this program will rely on continued upkeep of these lists which will depend upon both NHSL and Series Keeper libraries.

Keeping a Series:

•  At the launch of the project (that's now!) NH libraries will be asked to complete an online survey to generate a list of series to be kept. This list of series will be published on the project webpage listing the libraries that have volunteered (as part of the survey) to host specific series and listing those that were suggested and need keepers. After the initial launch, libraries will be able to join the project by contacting the NHAIS Help Desk. Libraries that have the capacity to do so are welcome to host more than one series.
  
  
• For very popular and prolific authors, several libraries may be hosts. This will ensure that one library is not exclusively providing all of the author’s materials.
  
  
• Participating libraries agree to maintain the series by purchasing replacements in the event an item is lost or damaged. Libraries are encouraged to solicit donated copies first from other libraries in the state through the Yard sale NHAIS listserv.
  
  
• If a participating library no longer wishes to be the keeper of a particular series they are expected to notify NHAIS Services of this decision BEFORE discarding any of the books in the kept series. NHAIS will work with the library to find a new home, hopefully a new Series Keeper, for the volumes they are discarding from the kept series.

NH libraries are invited to complete the Series Keeper Start-Up Survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SeriesKeeper2024 The survey will remain open until Sunday August 18, 2024. After that we will close sign-ups while we set up the initial group of responding libraries. Once things are up and running we will be able to add new libraries to the project.