I recommend Follett. If you purchase Follett bound books as
opposed to publisher binding, Follett will replace book if
binding does not hold up. Also, there are several other perks
to using Follett. My rep visits me several times a year and
assists me with collection analysis and grant writing.

On 6/22/09, Kevin wrote:
> On 6/22/09, Theresa Hemingway wrote:
>> I am a parent volunteer working to create a library for our
>> small charter school. We are starting our third year and
>> will have grades 6-8, with a plan to add a new 6th grade
>> each year until we are grades 6-12.
>>
>> Because we are new and small, our budget is limited. In
>> fact, right now we have a bunch of donated books and some
>> books we got through Scholastic book sales, a $1000 gift
>> card from Barnes and Noble that we earned through a book
>> sale there, and the possibility of a $5000 grant that we
>> have applied for. It's not much, but it's a start.
>>
>> We were planning to use Follett Library Resources to
>> purchase books if we win the grant. However, the parent
>> librarian at another charter school in our area told me
>> that Follett books don't hold up as well as books bought
>> from other sellers. What I'm wondering is if this is
>> everyone's experience. Is Follett not a good company to buy
>> from? If not, what company would you recommend? Besides
>> quality books that will hold up to middle schoolers, we
>> need good customer support to guide us in choosing which
>> books to buy.
>
> No experience on Follett books, but the Scholastic ones
> definitely have a history of low-quality binding. My wife,
> who runs a small private school library, has found that she
> can stretch her tiny acquisitions budget a long way by
> shopping used bookstores and Friends of the Library sales.
> (Of course, if she were paid for the time she spends shopping,
> it might not be such a good price, but she enjoys doing book
> shopping and does it on her own time.)
>
> Starting a library from scratch may be harder to do with used
> books, as there may be several must-have books that are not
> available on the local used market. Buying used books does
> require having a good knowledge of the books the library can
> use---what is in demand, what good authors are currently not
> in the library, since you can't just make up a shopping list
> and expect to find the books you want

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