Purchasing print-on-demand books

Have any libraries purchased print-on-demand books? What are the reports on their construction quality? Is it possible to select for good content?

Feel free to add any other factors that you can think of, of course.

1. Alan Thomas II

• collection-development
• print-on-demand

Comments

• Jakob: Questions that begin with "should" should not be asked here. Your first question is fine and you may ask about criteria to purchase or not to purchase PoD books, but there is no general answer to your question.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: I've tried reformulating it. I'm trying to steer clear of an open-ended invitation for individuals to share their personal experiences by giving a goal for this data, but I'm open to further suggestions on improving the question.
• 1. Alan Thomas II: Thanks to Deborah Mould for reformulating this question without losing any of my points. This is why there's an "edit" button and why you get rep for using it. ^_^

Answer by Jakob

Unless there are summarizing articles or thesis about "print on demand books in libraries", I doubt that one can give a full answer to this general question. The answer to the first question, whether libraries have purchased print-on-demand books, is yes: just search for known PoD publishers in library union catalogs, for instance:

• Books on Demand in GBV
• Lulu in GBV

I have not found out how to obviously search for publishers in WorldCat, but as shown by Ron Buckley in this question, there is the pb: index for publishers.

Comments

• 1. Alan Thomas II: Thanks. I would advise any readers to check out Jakob's question as an extension of this answer.