THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2008

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Library Selling Off Most Of Unused VHS Tape Collection

Heather Imhoff, head of Information Services at the Des Plaines Public Library, browses the library's VHS collection, much of which will be sold at this April's sale.

By TROY BRUZEWSKI

Journal Reporter

VHS cassettes are more an item now for historical societies than they are for local libraries.

The proof will be in the Des Plaines Public Library's upcoming sale, Apr. 5-6, where a large majority of its VHS collection-3,000 tapes-will be available for purchase.

According to Heather Imhoff, head of Public Information Services for the library, the VHS tapes are becoming an obsolete item.

"The circulation for them is very low and they take up a lot of shelf space," Imhoff said. "We're clearing the way to further expand our DVD collection."

Imhoff added the entire collection of tapes will not be on sale. The library intends on keeping tapes that either are rented often, used heavily by school programs or that have significance to Des Plaines.

"We haven't finalized what is being kept or sold," she said. "We aren't getting rid of each and every last one."

Selling the tapes will save significant space, as cases for DVDs are much thinner than VCR tapes and can be stored in a manner similar to audio compact discs.

Imhoff said it's an occurring trend at libraries, to phase into providing DVDs over VHS. That's the case at Prospect Heights Public Library, which recently had a similar sale of VHS tapes.

Dr. Bill McCulley, Prospect Hts. library's executive director, said his facility started to gradually phase into DVDs over the past three years.

"We stopped buying new titles in VHS format a few years ago and have been reducing our VHS titles," McCulley said. "We came up with a formula when we could see the DVD circulation was rising and VHS was falling off."

McCulley said his library decided to sell off VHS tapes, as more DVDs became available. He added by 2010 the library expects to have dispersed its VHS collection.

McCulley also added DVDs have many more positives than do VHS.

"There's a lot more information on DVDs, that don't appear on VHS," he said. "DVDs are more durable and you can store two DVDs where one VHS is being stored."