Public Libraries and new materials

I have mentioned previously how one of my goals for the year is to listen to more music. Not only my old collection, but new artists too. This has got me thinking about how soon new music should appear in a public library. You can expand that out to include any new materials such as books and movies. Should a public library have items available as close to their street release date as possible? I work in one of the busiest library systems in the country. We circulated over 10 million items last year throughout all of our branches. Dealing with such a large volume it is not surprising that a large number of new items arrive in our branches well after their release date. We list them in our catalog so customers can place requests. The downside is by the time we get the actual items and it starts to circulate the holds on it can pass the 4 digit mark. This forces us to buy large numbers of each popular title which is fine for the initial run of holds but after a year or so when the demand dies down they take up precious shelf space. We do get some of the most popular books and dvds out in circulation close to the release date. This does alleviate some of the issues. The bastard stepchild item though is music. For some reason we are so behind in getting out new artists and cds. It is embarrassing when customers come in looking for a new cd they heard on the radio or the internet and I have to tell them we do not even have a listing yet in the catalog. For some unknown reason we wait for the cds to chart in Billboard before we can list them. And then unless they are very popular they languish in our Processing department awaiting labeling. I can't tell you how many times I had the only request on a cd or one of the few requests and had to wait months for the cd to make its way through our Acquisitions and Processing departments. The whole ordering and processing system has been changing as they try to streamline the process as much as possible to expedite things. Still, music continues to take a back seat to books and movies. Yes, books and movies circulate at a higher overall rate, but music holds its own too. Hopefully the next wave of changes will rectify things. I can always dream...