Accounting for Libraries Available to Purchase

When Library School Directors are next considering changes to their courses may I suggest the following additions: accountancy skills and retail sales management. Much of the time of a professional librarian can be spent accounting for every penny that is taken from the public. And these days this can amount to a tidy sum. Not only are there ever increasing fines and local histories to be sold, but fringe items such as children's badges, plastic bags and pencils. More dubious still are those non‐library sales functions bolted on to our traditional duties simply because we are a public service. Concert ticket sales, for example, are explained away as a legitimate municipal function.