Tour of James Bennett Publishing, Sydney

A group of 22 library professionals from the New Graduates group participated in a tour of the James Bennett Pty Ltd book company at Belrose, Sydney on 7 December 2004.

Organised by Alyson Dalby, NSW NGG Coordinator, attendees included librarians from academic, public and special libraries - some had even travelled from as far away as Bathurst!

The tour commenced with a brief introduction to the company, and then a fascinating tour of the receiving area, the processing and cataloguing areas. It was interesting to see how the various libraries receive their products - from a plain book, to one that has been covered, stamped, bar-coded and has had security strips inserted.

The tour then moved into the special sections of the company (children's books and special orders) and finished with a presentation about the James Bennett web site and a fabulous lunch.

James Bennett started his book company in 1958, from humble beginnings selling books from the boot of his car at Collaroy. The company expanded and moved to the current location at Belrose. It was founded in 1964 and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2004 and is independently owned by James Bennett. Many employees have worked for the company for many years and are very loyal (with up to 31 years service). There are a total of 90 staff, 15 per cent trained as librarians with processing and cataloguing the fastest growing areas.

We were given a tour of all areas of the Belrose location including management accounting, standing orders, sales and marketing and customer service. Book orders can be classified as standard or urgent (within 48 hours within the metropolitan area). Bennetts have an excellent value added service for libraries where they will catalogue, cover, label, security tags, stamp and barcode books for individual libraries (often university or public) according to their specific requirements.

Their web site is http://www.bennett.com.au/ and includes features such as new releases and specials, 'in the news' (latest media information) and the JBO online ordering system. Within months the website will be upgraded to a new, improved system with added features like links to book reviews and tables of contents.

The tour was enlightening and entertaining, and the offices in Belrose look like a fantastic place to work! We appreciated the time staff took to explain many aspects of the company to us and we were given an insight into the behind the scenes areas of book selling.

Kay Neville, librarian, Northern Beaches College of TAFE

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