Front Desk

As part of the American Library Association's (ALA) Campaign for America's Libraries, Walgreens drug store chain agreed to provide 410,000 copies of a brochure on the new Medicare Drug Discount Card Program. The brochure is produced by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. However, according to discussions on the ALA Council list, some councilors are upset about aligning ALA with a particular corporation, and some libraries have refused to put out the brochures. Each of 16,400 public libraries was to receive packets of 25 brochures in June. "I don't know how much money ALA got from Walgreens, but the 25 brochures I'm distributing aren't going to shake the world," commented Christine Lind Hage, director of the Clinton-Macomb Public Library, MI. In all, Walgreens will contribute nearly $1 million to ALA over three years to promote libraries— including funding for educational seminars to be offered at public libraries in ten U.S. cities through grants of up to $25,000.

The number of new titles and editions released in the United States in 2003 was a record 175,000, up 19% from 2002, with juvenile titles up 45.3%. Other changes were modest.

Large trade houses: Up 2.4% (22,914)
University presses: Down 2.2% (12,003)
Adult fiction: Down 1.6% (17,021)
Source: R.R. Bowker