Love Your Library: Requesting Books for Purchase

I loooooooove the library. Love it. Always have. Always will.

My love for it was reinvigorated when I got back into reading after university, and my truly bizarre misconception that the library didn't carry any 'new' books or books I'd want to read (???? I don't know why I thought this) was proved WRONG. I, in fact, did not have to buy every book I wanted to read because the library has a pretty unreal selection.

That's why I wanted to start a Love Your Library blog series where I highlight some great features your library offers that you may not know about. Let's start with one of my favourites: requesting books for purchase.

I will say, the Hamilton Public Library is pretty great and 97% of the time has any book am looking for. In a few cases, when they don't, I'll put a request in.

What you do is fill out a form recommending a certain book to purchase, in what format, and why you think the library should carry this book. There are certain parameters (ie., HPL says they only consider books that have been released within the last two years), but if they don't carry an older book, they will do an inter-library loan!

HPL has a suggest for purchase form, TPL has a recommend a title form, and NYPL does so by recommending patrons reaching out to their local branch. If you Google "your library" + "suggest purchase" or "recommend title" you'll likely find out how to do this.

Below are the physical books I've requested through this feature (all were eventually purchased!):

We Too

No Visible Bruises

Fiona and Jane

Build Your House Around My Body

I just recently discovered you can request audiobooks as well! I'm working my way through Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series, and I find that for big books I really like alternating between reading a physical copy and listening to audio. Since the Throne of Glass series is an Audible original (meaning, it is only available on Audible, and I can't get them on Libro.fm and Scribd), I have limited options for listening to this series. I submitted the request form for audio copies for the entire series, and so far HPL has added the first four: Assassin's Blade, Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, and Heir of Fire.

Some libraries will email you to let you know if they've purchased a book based on your request, some don't. HPL doesn't, but because I'm me I obsessively check in a few weeks after making the request. If I see it in the catalog, I assume my request had something to do with it ;).

Have you used this feature at your library before? I'd love to know!