Fake Books
Context
At Lancashire Teaching Hospitals we have been turning old withdrawn editions of books into fake books to go on our shelves.
In preparation for an order of new medical books being delivered the shelves in the library have been weeded. As each section of the library has been weeded, the catalogue has been checked to see if a newer edition of a book we are withdrawing and not buying is available on the catalogue. If a more recent edition is available at another library, we have turned the withdrawn book into a fake book.
Being part of the Koha NoW consortium means our users have access to over 100,000 books and we want to make sure they are making the most of this. They should know that a book they are after may not be on our shelves but can be accessed by requesting it from another library.
The fake book has a picture of the cover of the book and a QR code to direct our users to reserve the book from another library. It lets them know which edition is available to them this way.
I created a simple template on Canva to make it easier to duplicate this multiple times with multiple books. Depending on the size of the withdrawn book I would either print the fake book covers as A3 or A4. I would also print a spine label on the same type of paper, so the colour matched. I always print off and add the spine label separately as it is easier than trying to work out where it should be on the page before printing.
Outcome
I did recently have someone come to the desk at our Chorley site who was looking for books on a topic but didn’t have a certain book in mind. I showed her where the books were on the shelf, and she browsed from there. When she had found a few books, the user brought them to the desk to be issued. One of the books was one of our fake books! I then put the reservation on for her, meaning she was accessing the latest edition of the book that was available on the catalogue. Without the fake book being on the shelf, the reservation may not have been put on the book as our user would not have known that the book was available from elsewhere.
I think this shows it is going to have the most impact on the people who come into the library and maybe don’t have a specific book they are after and are just having a browse. If users come in looking for a certain book, they will normally check the catalogue or come to the desk and find out that way that the book is available at another library.
Niamh Tierney, Library Assistant
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
