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Yesterday, we weeded many large print titles as our space for these was getting tight. The majority of our collection is fairly new. Our budget has increased for large print materials in the past few years as the demand for this material seemed to be increasing. Lately though we feel our collection is under-utilized by the public. We are looking for some creative ways to market this collection. We thought we might bring some titles to our senior center figuring that we might reach some people we never see in the library. I know other libraries do this and would appreciate any comments or suggestions you might have to make this a successful venture. We would like to know who takes care of the program, staff or volunteers? if you provide a shelf or cart? how frequently you change titles? how you keep track of what is borrowed? how successful this venture has been?

I also wonder who you are purchasing your large print titles from. The selection seems to have improved these past years, I'm certain in part due to the growing population in need of large print titles and patrons that want simultaneous release of the best sellers. Still, many of the titles have hefty prices and the only way to get decent discounts is to sign up for standing orders. I would prefer not to locked into a set number or selection of books. I do purchase Random House titles and some others at a discount negotiated by a consortium bid price in the state of CT. Frequently I am still unable to find specific authors or titles. For instance I was looking for some P.D James and phoned Thompson Gale who carries many large print imprints. I think we came up with 2 titles, both of which we own. We have also had an increase in requests for non-fiction.

I do not wish anyone to think that I believe all seniors need large print. Certainly others are reading these titles, because they need the large print or because the title is available in large print.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Once again , I appreciate your comments about large print books.

Recently I took home Dean Koontz's book The Husband published by Random House in large print. As this was one of my first experiences reading large print I was a bit surprised to see that there were several spots where text was in bold print. This became very annoying and detracted from the whole experience for me. I assumed that the bold text was italic text in the regular print version and this seems to be true.

As you have had a great deal of experience with large print perhaps you could tell me if this is the normal procedure for italicized text? If a patron truly was in need of the large print, would this help them and enhance their reading pleasure?

I'll have to sample some other publishers books and talk more to my patrons about their experiences with large print. I do know that some like paperback, some like spines that open and lay flat and most prefer not to have heavy books for nighttime reading.

The use of bold face print instead of italics in large print books is to aid those with visual impairments. It is more difficult to read italicized print.

yeah -- I wondered the same thing when I first started using and reading large print -- after awhile, you get used to it :-)

I ordered some large print books on a half-price sale today at Thorndike/Gale-Thompson. While on their website I came across this interesting article in Publisher's Weekly by Robert Masello about his quest for large print books [url http://www.gale.com/pdf/largeprinttestimonial ]Enough With the Fine Print[/url] .

Though he jests, Mr. Masello challenges publishes and booksellers alike to produce and stock more large print. Having found a goldmine of large print at his local library he is hooked and wants more. He states that out of the 25,000 new titles put out by the trade houses last year, only 10%of these were in large print. Let's hope publishers heed his call.

mjpllibrarian

I like your ideas for ways to circulate your large print books. We, too, have a homebound service where the books are delivered by volunteers.

I didn't know books could be mailed free of charge if they were considered materials for the blind. I'll have to look into this.

We are getting ready to launch our new service of materials located at our senior center. We have purchased a really nice book cart which is double sided andhas four shelves. There's lots of room for all types of materials including large print books and face out display. We like the height of the cart as the top 2 rows are at easy eye level. We bought magnetic signs for the sides of the cart and a drawer that fits over the side lip to hold check out materials. We will label each book with return instructions using removable 2"x3" labels. Our plan is to fill the cart with large print titles as well as some regular print, dvd's, videos, cd's and a few magazines. Our check out slips will include an area for suggestion for purchase and a note to stop by the library to get a library card. One of our super library volunteers has taken this project on as her own and will stock the shelves, swap materials back and forth and generally monitor the program. We are excited and almost ready to begin. I'll take a picture and post back on the success of the project!

Read How You Want is an Australian large print publishing company that prints LP books on demand based on their own catalog. What is special is that you can purchase the book in 11, 13, 16, 16 BOLD, 18, 20 and 24 pt type size as well as in Braille and daisy formats. The titles are available direct from the company, through Amazon, and soon through one or more of library book wholesalers. Check out their website.

Noted by Mr. Extraordinary Allan Kleiman