Main Library Books
Tuesday, October 19, 2021 Charleston County Library

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Have you bought an item online and noticed it’s taking longer than usual to arrive? Or have you found items are out of stock that are usually easy to buy? U.S. consumers are feeling the effects of supply chain and shipping issues nationwide, according to multiple news sources.

“The supply chain is overwhelmed and inundated,” Georgia Parts Authority CEO Giff Lynch said in an interview with The New York Times. “It’s not sustainable at this point. Everything is out of whack.”

Charleston County Public Library is also feeling the ripple effect of those supply challenges and disruptions, impacting availability, postponement of materials, deliveries, new releases, and more.

The Library’s LCATS Department - which stands for Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services - is responsible for managing the library’s collection of materials such as books, movies, ebooks/audio books, and more. LCATS staff is constantly monitoring the state of the publishing industry, including any potential supply chain or inventory issues, and will continue to do everything in their power to ensure that our libraries are serving the community in the best way possible. Unfortunately, many of these disruptions are beyond CCPL's control. CCPL, like many other libraries, may see delays, inventory issues, and reduced shipments of new resources for the foreseeable future.

How does that affect our patrons? You may wait longer than usual for a book you placed on hold, new titles may not arrive or appear in the catalog as quickly as you are used to, and we may have limited availability of information about when new movie DVDs and Blu-Rays will be released or available to us.

“CCPL will continue to be proactive and take all steps available to mitigate these delays,” said Associate Director Amy Quesenbery, who oversees LCATS. “We appreciate your patience as we work through these issues.”  

While we wait, CCPL encourages you to explore some of the other resources CCPL has to offer, including eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, music, and movies, available from our digital providers Hoopla and OverDrive.

For more information about the publishing industry’s current supply chain challenges, check out this recent Publisher's Weekly article.