Anderson

Can Libraries as a whole effectively utilize long tail of our collection?

A long standing problem with the libraries has been that they were not particularly sensitive to the needs of individuals, as a consequence, they ended up catering to the demands of masses. There are two reasons why this happened - mechanisms for finding out what a large number of people want, on individual level, that is, were not in place. Secondly, in a scenario where the resources and choices are limited, it is most efficacious to include items with most mass appeal in the library's collection.

Is it worth it?

It most certainly is worth it. Libraries couldn't attempt to cater to all the literary and and recreational needs because they lacked resources and means for accurately assessing needs of their patrons.

What would we have to do?

We will have to device means to find out what our patrons really want. This can be accomplished by means of opinion polls, suggestion boxes or surveys. Once we know what is wanted, we can gather these materials and make them available to library patrons.