During the Flagstaff City Library Board's director's report, Library Director Linda said the national distributor Baker & Taylor has announced it is going out of business and that the change could cause delays in getting new materials and increase costs for the library system.

"Baker and Taylor is a distributor that the majority of libraries in the country use to get their books from," Linda said. "They have been in business 198 years. And sadly, they're going out of business, and so this is gonna have significant impacts on libraries." She added that Baker & Taylor historically provided discounts of "as much as 40%" on many titles compared with retail prices.

The director and staff discussed potential alternatives, including Ingram and increased use of vendors such as Amazon, but said switching vendors will not be seamless. Linda said initial processing of transfers to other distributors will likely create service delays because companies such as Ingram could be overwhelmed during any migration.

Staff also noted a state-level service called Arizona Reads was previously run on a Baker & Taylor platform; the director said she contacted the state library and that it is working on a migration to Libby but that final arrangements remained unclear at the time of the meeting.

Board members were told the change is likely to affect purchasing budgets and will be considered in upcoming budget discussions. No formal action or vote was taken during the meeting; the discussion was informational and focused on planning and potential budget impacts.

Local context and next steps: staff said they have begun exploring alternative distributors and expect to include potential budget adjustments in the system's next budget cycle. The board asked for future updates on vendor transitions and anticipated delivery delays.