Baker & Taylor Branches Out

Baker & Taylor (B&T) remains the library market's leading print distributor (it reports 90 percent penetration in PLs), but the company has expanded its turf, making it the supplier with the most formats, including games.

Venturing outside the traditional book world, B&T recently contracted to supply the customers of ILS vendor Innovative Interfaces with bibliographic information, including almost 1.5 million jacket-art images for books, CDs, DVDs, and ebooks; tables of contents; and full-text reviews from ten sources—including LJ—along with purchase availability.

The library AV market is exploding, with music and movies comprising some 40 percent of total circulations in large systems served by B&T. With VHS dying out, DVDs represent nearly 85 percent of video sales, helped by the boom in anime. Company president George Coe told LJ that B&T is developing a DVD subscription plan, which will focus on entertainment titles for all ages, plus some instructionals and how-tos. "Music sales are climbing," he added; pop/rock and country dominate, with classical and jazz representing ten percent of sales.

Keeping pace with ebooks, in mid-January B&T announced a deal with OCLC's netLibrary, whereby the two will add 80,000 netLibrary ebooks to B&T's inventory and its collection development programs.

B&T still nurtures its core business. Last fall, it acquired Libros Sin Fronteras (LSF) and J.A. Majors, two leading distributors of Spanish-language and medical and science materials, respectively. All future B&T Spanish-language activity will continue under the LSF banner, with former owner and librarian Michael Shapiro as VP, Spanish-language materials. The Majors deal also gave B&T an immediate wealth of new content—plus a much-needed passport into college and medical school bookstores.

Majors offers approval plans and Booklist Express (hot titles in a hurry); handles business, engineering, science and technology inventory and collection development services; and publishes a newsletter for medical librarians. B&T also sells subscriptions to information contained in Majors's titles, so users don't have to purchase entire books.

The public's evolving tastes in subjects and formats challenge libraries. B&T offers collection development tools and custom solutions such as School Selection and Title Source. The latter's collection management products include e-lists of librarian-compiled bibliographies; the free monthly FirstLook Progam, which updates new titles; FirstLook Plus, a subscription to lists of librarian-reviewed titles in more selective areas; and FirstLook Custom, which allows construction of institution-specific profiles.

B&T offers options for opening-day collections, K–12 core curricula, and undergraduate and graduate college library support in conjunction with its YBP Academic Library Services subsidiary.

Launched in 1997, B&T's Customized Library Services (CLS) is its fastest-growing unit, with more than 110 customers. CLS's two divisions comprise four service centers, employing 106 catalogers and several hundred additional staff. One division offers customized services involving assistance in collection development, customized selection lists for top titles in subject areas, and new title notifications. It also generates opening-day collections.

The other division is a full-service unit that generates 85 percent of a locally tailored collection, as B&T performs cataloging and processing to free staff time and reduce costs. Other programs support ongoing acquisitions and collection development.

In June, B&T will debut Title Source III, the latest incarnation of its web-based collection development system, with more than four million records. The new release, Coe said, will have "a whole new look and many new features."