Spoken Word Collections – PLN Responses SENT: 15-5-2026 Hi Everyone, We are currently looking at the usage of our spoken word collections across our library service. We are finding that the traditional spoken word (CD sets) has very low loan statistics at some locations. The collection is getting its greatest usage from our home library members. Even amongst this membership group, digital content is becoming more common. As you would all be aware, there is substantial cost in purchasing this collection. Some of the material that we have been supplied through standing orders is material that is no longer popular with both our adult members and home library members. Of course, when we do our own selection from the various suppliers, we are able to select the right genres – but, again, for the cost of the material the loans can be low. There is also the issue for some of our home library members that they are unable to change the discs over to the new disc, especially if they are a resident of an aged care facility, and there is no person available to assist them - they can then lose interest. I guess what I am wondering is, is this common across the board? • How are you all dealing with the stock that is not moving, and taking up, for some, valuable shelf space? • From a sustainability view, we cannot just withdraw stock that is in perfectly good condition and throw it out. • We are not in a position to sell at booksale (who would buy it anyway), as it is against our policy. • We do donate withdrawn LP to some of our nursing homes, and this is always popular – but nobody asks for spoken word. • We could donate to a library service who needs a boost to their collection, especially a regional library. Keen to hear from anyone looking at this same issue. RESPONSES: Hi Sandra, I manage the North Western Cooperative Library Service in western NSW. As a small library service in regard to population we haven't bought any audio books this financial year for your reasons below. I have one library that has a small group listening but not interested in new titles so we are slowly sending all titles their way and once listened to as they are aging we are donating where we can to a couple of nursing homes. Most are being thrown out. Majority of our members are using the apps to listen to eaudiobooks or if we need to we borrow from the SLNSW. For the kids we have moved onto the wonderbooks from MDM. These are much more popular than the audio or playaways. Hope that this helps. Regards, Erica Erica Kearnes Regional Library Manager NORTH WESTERN LIBRARY Hi Sandra Have you considered donated the spoken word collection to the Vision Australia Library? https://visionaustralia.org/services/library  Alison Wishart Local History Librarian Woollahra Libraries 451 New South Head Road, Double Bay NSW 2028 t: 02 9391 7187 e: Alison.Wishart@woollahra.nsw.gov.au Hi Sandra We found the same here. We stopped adding to the collection last year, then this year weeded everything (3 reports: never borrowed, not borrowed in 2 years, borrowed more than 70 times), and moved the remainder at Bowen branch to the stack. Randwick and Malabar branches have kept only a shelf or two, but they’ll probably all end up in stack eventually. We still have a handful of patrons requesting SW, and some Home library patrons use them as well. The plan is to just do a weed every year until they disappear We didn’t bother putting them in our on-going book sale but might keep some newer titles for our big book sale later in the year. Otherwise, we’re keeping the cases and binning the discs. Hope this helps! Kind Regards Kylie Kylie Watt (she/her) Library Collection Services Officer Randwick City Library Hi Sandra, Willoughby has made the decision not to purchase any audiobooks from the 2026/27 FY. The reasons why are covered in your email. We have weeded the collection on usage and soon to start weeding by condition. Discarded stock in good condition is placed on a trolley, and customers can take any titles for free. Stock not in good condition is recycled. Regards Cheryl Cheryl Woodward - Customer Experience Supervisor WILLOUGHBY CITY COUNCIL Hi Sandra, We have the same problem at Gunnedah, as I imagine at most libraries. It has been an ongoing discussion here for over 12 months, as we too have a spoken word collection that is very rarely being used when compared with 5 years ago. We have put it down to the increased use of spoken word by the general population, but in a more convenient format, i.e. electronic. Our electronic usage is good (excellent, if looking at a particular pay-per-borrow provider). From speaking to our customers, we know that many of the people who were borrowing these items used them when driving (on trips and commuting) and when operating machinery (on farms, etc.). As most new vehicles do not have CD players, they have had to change to electronic formats or find other things to listen to for these journeys. Our borrowers who live in aged care, report the same problems with starting a disc but not being able to change to the next one. We purchased MP3 format discs, which eliminates that problem, but they are not very handy in terms of stopping/starting, as a ‘track’ can last for over an hours or more. Last year we weeded our collection by a quarter, pulling out those that looked old or unappealing and making the area more open, in the hopes that a less cluttered shelf might inspire more borrowing, but this hasn’t really helped. Those we felt had potential were disposed of through a service organisation’s book sale, while we used the lesser discs for our craft sessions (they do make pretty decorations!) We were considering purchasing new stock - with the thought that people may have read all those that interested them - but baulked at the cost incurred vs. potential usage. Are we putting good money into new stock, only to find that the format isn’t viable? The decision gets pushed back, over and over. For us, the space they take up is very valuable. We have considered further weeding, simply based on them not being borrowed. I predict that we will end up doing this, and the collection will largely just ‘age out’ and shrink over time. However, to remove them completely risks disadvantaging a section of the community. How many people is an appropriate number to be servicing? And at what point do we say “Sorry, not enough people want them, so we are removing the collection.”? We have similar discussions about our Large Print collection, with the loans on those decreasing. Our regular collection is predominantly trade-paperback size (23cm) as these usually have good size font which is easy to read. Luckily, we were able to purchase new Large Print stock at a good discount and the collection will be well-weeded and re-filled with these new titles, in the hopes of spurring increased loans. I guess these are just the decisions that we make, keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for a positive outcome. We can’t please everybody and whichever decision we make, there are bound to be people who disagree! Regards Fiona Sills Library Technician Gunnedah Shire Council HI Sandra, Here at RRL we only purchase MP3 over CD stories as we had found that the borrowing of CD stories was reducing. We have done this now for about 5 years. The CD stories are the ones being weeded by our branches (low stats and they take up more shelf space)and we have donated some to aged care services – but mostly we have just got to discard them through the garbage. We feel the same way about the waste as they were a considerable investment. The loan stats for MP3 are still tracking well so we are still investing in this collection. We have found that eAudio is more popular than the physical. Regards, Cynthia. Cynthia Price Collection Services Officer Riverina Regional Library Good morning Sandra, Here at Inner West, we’ve been purchasing MP3’s only for some time and gradually weeded out full length CD’s with some exceptions. Those exceptions are: Harry Potter series Agatha Christie Shakespeare Classics Almost everything else now is MP3. We took this action after a survey of HLS patrons showed a preference for MP3 From our perspective, its paid dividends in that we can get a greater range of MP3’s on the shelf as opposed to talking books and our patrons love them as they are easier to handle. For disc recycling: we’ve been recycling discs through Officeworks in Lewisham, maybe you have one close who provides the same service . I don’t see us buying anymore full length talking books as we get more bang for our buck on MP3’s That said, I’ve had one patron at an aged care home who has gone through three of our CD players.. the home has organised her a replacement player, but it’s not MP3 !!!… Because of this dinosaur of a machine, I’m now bringing all remaining non-MP 3 to Ashfield to support this one patron. Had it not been for this one patron, I probably would have reduced the talking Book collection even further during this year. The joys of aged care homes 😊☹ Kindest Regards, Scott Pooke Team Leader Home Library p +61 2 9335 2134 e Scott.Pooke@innerwest.nsw.gov.au Hi Sandra. Like you we’ve discovered that the loans for our audiobook collections had nosedived considerably, except for HLS usage. We made the decision to make the collection exclusive for HLS use and we’ve weeded and removed what’s left from the public floor of our main branch (Hurstville) and are in the process of doing this with our other branches. Of course, the moment we removed it, people came out of the woodwork wanting to know where it had gone! We’re still maintaining investment in the collection as we have no wish to disadvantage our HLS customers. But I imagine that this will change over time.  Garret Jackson Team Leader Collections t: +61293306128 e: GJackson@georgesriver.nsw.gov.au | georgesriver.nsw.gov.au Hi Sandra, We are about to endeavour on a big overhaul of our LP and Spoken Word collections. While I can't at this moment answer any of the questions you have asked below as we have those exact same ones, I would love to read any responses you get. Thanks and Happy Monday, Gabby 😄 Gabrielle Cundy Collection Development Librarian Gabrielle.Cundy@blacktown.nsw.gov.au Hi Sandra, Sutherland faces all of those problems across the board ourselves. Our one saving grace with the audio books is that we have so much space in HL to store the collection. We can pretty much hang onto stuff here, even if it isn’t moving. In response to your dot points …. • Agree that they are far too expensive. HL hase always selected its own titles, but the last 18 months we haven’t even spent our allocated budget for Audio books. We pretty much leave it to the person who spends the rest of the AV budget. If they find something and send it directly our way, all well and good, but generally it goes to the general circulation collection. From there, we just reallocate to HL if and when they are weeding. The collection is barely moving in general circ either, so I’m not sure how much longer they will continue purchasing either. • Sustainability wise, it is weeded and almost entirely binned. It doesn’t go to book sale or get offered to outside institutions (like Large Print for example). Very few library staff would even be aware of what is happening with the whole process – the cost, the processing, the limited stats, the weeding and then disposal. Pure waste. • Booksale? Not against policy as such, but the decision was made several years ago to not have any AV, ie. no DVDs , music CDs or spoken word. ( It was on the back of some absolutely horrible DVDs which no one in their right mind would purchase, and thus had to be disposed of). It goes a little against the grain, as I know donated DVDs, music CDs and even spoken word CDs do move at charity shops. No a lot of money, but people do purchase, and then our customers sometimes try and donate back to us! This avenue is becoming the only one available to reasonably purchase spoken word audio for non-library users. • No institutions have accepted the offer of Audio books. We did find a home for some at Sutherland hospital several years ago. I think it was ‘The Friends of Sutherland hospital’, a volunteer group getting material round to patients. Maybe one of the hospitals over your way may be interested? • Have thought about donating too. Some of the stuff has been in mint condition. If not donating, what about a long term loan like what the State does when offering? I don’t know where its all heading, but the end is nigh for these resources. This issue is what has prompted me to chase up the Vision Australia option to guarantee a decent selection if Borrowbox decides to go down the app path. Sadly, that looks dead in the water as our IT department will not budge on us breaching their cyber security policy when managing 3rd party accounts and passwords etc. On the bigger issue of cost, I’ve tried to make the point that if we dipped our toe in the water with basic smart devices, the cost would be on par (or less) with these CDs and we would certainly get a much better return. If the VA pathway closes, I will certainly be pursuing this as our next step. Good luck with it! Cheers, Stephen Stephen Peacock Sutherland Shire Council | Senior Officer - Home Library Service | Arts and Libraries Hi Sandra, We have been tracking the usage of our Spoken Word CDs with similar findings. From our recent collections review:  Observations Recommendations • 90% of audiobook loans were in digital format, with only 10% of loans in CD format – this seems to reflect a greater preference for the digital format, and a good awareness of the platforms that support this format. • 62% of the audiobook stock available is eAudio compared to 38% on CD, all of which are for adults, so the higher digital loans may also reflect the greater range available. • There were still over 200 borrowers who regularly used the small CD collection despite the lower availability of titles in this format, indicating that for this minority, the preference for physical formats is still strong. • Phase out physical collection over time, transitioning toward predominantly digital provision. • Carefully monitor users still accessing physical collections and support them with small core collections, gradually decreasing over the next 3–5 years. To answer your specific questions: • How are you all dealing with the stock that is not moving, and taking up, for some, valuable shelf space? o Weed the collection heavily to reduce the collection footprint (maintaining a small collection of high demand items) while gradually decrease quantities of new stock coming in. • From a sustainability view, we cannot just withdraw stock that is in perfectly good condition and throw it out. o We weed based on age and usage – not condition. If it doesn’t demonstrably meet customer needs, it goes. • We are not in a position to sell at book sale (who would buy it anyway), as it is against our policy. o We don’t have this as a policy, so permission is not an issue. As for who would buy it - when we discontinued our Junior spoken word collection, we emailed the remaining small number of customers using the collection and notified them. One customer requested to buy some of the withdrawn stock, and she bought most of them (or we may have just given them to her, I can’t recall). • We do donate withdrawn LP to some of our nursing homes, and this is always popular – but nobody asks for spoken word. We could donate to a library service who needs a boost to their collection, especially a regional library o Perhaps a location with unreliable/restricted internet access? Remote libraries? Gaols? I hope that helps Robyn Robyn Menzies Coordinator Resources Access Blacktown City Council Hi Sandra, I think these issues are pretty common amongst libraries, but i'd also be interested it anyone has unique ideas or solutions! • How are you all dealing with the stock that is not moving, and taking up, for some, valuable shelf space? We rotate items between branches to give them new life. I also encourage staff who are responsible for putting up book displays to offer a variety of formats, titles, genres, etc. The aim of this is to not just promote the new stuff, but things customers may not usually consider. • From a sustainability view, we cannot just withdraw stock that is in perfectly good condition and throw it out. Decent collection owners/staff will try the above things first, before withdrawing/weeding. Like you, we cannot sell the Audiobooks and so far none of our aged care facilities have requested donations of withdrawn books (but they have accepted withdrawn LP before! 'Tis interesting). In an attempt to be sustainable, we keep the Audiobook case (if its in good condition) for repairs. This helps reuse our goods and cut down costs of buying new cases. Additionally, we recycle the CDs themselves through Councils recycling initiatives. I hope this helps 🙂 Regards, Laura Saunders Collections Librarian Library Services E laura.saunders@penrith.city Usage of our spoken word collections across our library service- response from Waverley Library to Sandra Bice (HLS working group email15/5/26) We are finding that the traditional spoken word (CD sets) has very low loan statistics at some locations. The collection is getting its greatest usage from our home library members. Even amongst this membership group, digital content is becoming more common. We still have HLS members that prefer traditional spoken word books rather than digital. Our aged care officers have told us that they are not providing devices because they spend the money on the subscription services such as Netflix, but members are bringing their own devices into the aged care home/ retirement village. We have a member that borrows audiobooks as well as an ENVOY. He says that he prefers having the choice and variety of content. We are still using CDs as many members have the players. The players are also cheaper than buying iPads and iPhones and computers. Any new members who enquire about audiobooks we suggest MP3 players. I think we are still in a transition phase (generationally) to only digital content. As you would all be aware, there is substantial cost in purchasing this collection. Some of the material that we have been supplied through standing orders is material that is no longer popular with both our adult members and home library members. Of course, when we do our own selection from the various suppliers, we are able to select the right genres – but, again, for the cost of the material the loans can be low. I have found that that over the years we have used most of the collection, especially when some members are borrowing 2-6 audiobooks fortnightly. At the moment, (most of the time) the popular genres are Romance, Thrillers, Mysteries and Classics as well as self-help and memoirs/autobiographies. I agree that if we are not selecting our titles, and we are sent audiobooks (standing order) sometimes they hold no interest for our HLS members. I believe buying the right titles to suit the demographic is key. There is also the issue for some of our home library members that they are unable to change the discs over to the new disc, especially if they are a resident of an aged care facility, and there is no person available to assist them - they can then lose interest. We have not had any HLS members tell us that they have any difficulty with changing discs. We try not to send e.g. 12 discs. • How are you all dealing with the stock that is not moving, and taking up, for some, valuable shelf space? Regular weeding in collaboration with HLS librarian -Stack and Booksale • From a sustainability view, we cannot just withdraw stock that is in perfectly good condition and throw it out. • We are not in a position to sell at booksale (who would buy it anyway), as it is against our policy. • We do donate withdrawn LP to some of our nursing homes, and this is always popular – but nobody asks for spoken word. • We could donate to a library service who needs a boost to their collection, especially a regional library. After careful discussion with managers and leaders, I would be happy to be part of an exchange of audiobooks to boost collection/ fill gaps thus saving money. Hi Sandra, Apologies for the late reply. I've been waiting for some feedback from the collections team. Pls find my responses attached. See you on Monday. Cheers Anna Librarian, Home Library Service Waverley Library Mon, Tue, Wed