Heads Up South Australian Poets and Poetry Lovers

I am a huge fan of South Australia's brilliant library system - a "One Card" system that means I can borrow and return at any library in the state.

I can have access to books that are shelved literally 1000 km away and get them delivered to my local library at no cost, requested from my PC or my phone .

It's brilliant and I understand that usage has gone through the roof.

The South Australian library system also has a digital library (integrated into the One Card system) that allows you to borrow and request they purchase ebooks.

It's this last feature that I liked (until my requests started not being fulfilled) - to be fair, when the service began operating I think I may have been one of the only people requesting poetry state wide.

A survey of my own recommendations shows that 65 books, most of them poetry have been selected since the service started a couple of years ago.

This reluctance to fulfil my desires didn't bother me until I started looking at what poetry was purchased in general over the last 6 months.

Purchases 

All Titles        1066
Poetry Titles   4*

As a comparison in the same period:

Erotic Literature Titles  7
Business Titles              20

*Only two of these are pure poetry collections.

I certainly have requested about 5-6 poetry collections in that period and none of them have been picked up.

My guess is that perhaps some poetry peeps aren't aware of either the ebook service or the ability to request or recommend the consortium purchase books.  To ensure that the collection builds in a diverse fashion I'd like to suggest more involvement from you.

So here's my clarion call to South Australian poets/poetry lovers.  Sign up to the One Card system at your closest library (it's free), this will give you a card number and pin which you can then sign into the Overdrive ebook site .

You can then search by title and or publisher and the page will give you the option to Borrow if its in the library or Recommend if it's not.  The selections are limited to established publishers but you can also choose from a wide range of international companies such as  Faber, Carcanet, Nine Arches, and Seren.

I figure the more people recommending titles the more likely it is the consortium will purchase them. Let me know if you have issues finding or recommending items.