New books

In an average month we add just over 4,000 books to our lending libary stock. These range from board books and picture books for young children to horror stories and science-fiction titles to large-print editions of prize-winning fiction and biographies. We also add a few hundred non-book items each month, including talking books; CDs; story sacks; and subtitled videos for deaf people.

You can see new stock on the Web Catalogue: items that have just arrived and are being checked and invoiced have the status "Available soon." (Items that have been ordered but not yet received have the status "On order"). Once they've arrived at the library they're checked in and have the status "In." You can reserve any lending items with any of these statuses. Please bear in mind, though, that items on order may be subject to publishers' or suppliers' delays — some titles are ordered before they are written (Harry Potter, for instance).

Many of our libraries display the titles of forthcoming new stock. We also have the online equivalent in our Web Catalogue and Kids' Portal. I update these roughly every three weeks, adding a selection of new titles from one of our libraries (a different one each time, to spread the coverage). I try to include titles from as wide a range of our collections as possible, though trying to select a few dozen titles from a couple of thousand makes this easier said than done!