AskWCPL

Unfortunately, there has been a significant delay in receiving almost all of the new books that we have ordered which have been published over the past year or so. Our book vendor has been running several months behind in getting the books we've ordered processed (adding all the correct labels, barcodes, jacket covers, RFID tags, etc.) and shipped to us.

This is because of both the national labor shortage (like many businesses, they have been having difficulty hiring workers to process the books in their warehouse), and the fact that they have been experiencing an unusually large workload as libraries and bookstores order more books as publishers have been releasing books which had previously delayed due to the global pandemic. Another large factor has also been supply-chain-related in our vendor being able to get RFID tags from their supplier.

Some good news is that the RFID tag supplier has been able to increase their production and our book vendor has been sending us shipments of new books much more frequently starting in the fall of 2022. That means that our vendor is beginning to get caught up and get us the new books much closer to their official publication dates, so that those copies can start filling the pending hold requests sooner to get the books in our patrons' hands. We hope to be almost completely caught up in receiving new books in a timely manner by the first quarter of 2023.