As library vendors onboard new clients and refine their operations for a smooth 2026 in the wake of the collapse of Baker & Taylor, Ingram Library Services has announced it has partnered with Backstage Library Works to better customize and deliver shelf-ready books to its library customers. The agreement with Backstage, a cataloging and metadata provider with 35 years of experience in libraries, archives, and museums, will help ILS increase its processing capabilities, per the announcement.
"Historically, our shelf-ready workflows were optimized for high-touch, professional cataloging," Backstage VP of library services Jake Bastian said. "While we have had discussions with Ingram over the years, our infrastructure wasn't specifically designed for the requirements of the broader public library market at the scale Ingram manages," but the company recently expanded to prepare for work with high-volume, quick-turnaround needs.
Under the partnership, ILS will ship purchased books and materials to Backstage facilities in Provo, Utah, and Bethlehem, Pa. Each item will be inventoried, assigned machine-readable cataloging (MARC) data, and packaged with customizable covers, labels, stamps, and tags. Finished materials will be shipped to libraries’ central locations or branches, ready to circulate.
In a December interview, Ingram VP of library services Carolyn Morris told PW that Ingram had received an “incredible increase in the volume of new account requests and order units coming our way,” and had hired 100 warehouse staffers to meet the demand. The partnership with Backstage aims to enable ILS to expand its cataloging and processing services still further.
"The increase in demand we’ve seen over the last few weeks definitely tracks with the trends across the industry," Bastian agreed. He's hearing from "new customers needing immediate help with processing backlogs" and long-term clients for Backstage services who "are now looking to us for physical processing as well."
Backstage Library Works president Nate Cothran told PW that while the company already works with libraries of all sizes, it will increase capacity to work with ILS. “This new partnership does require Backstage to scale up to meet the needs of larger library systems, especially for those requiring some level of physical processing,” Cothran said.
Cothran added that Backstage is “working to maximize the existing spaces across three offices,” and coordinating with Ingram’s distribution centers, as the partnership launches. “We have considered opening new facilities nearby as well as expanding further into our respective neighborhoods,” he said.
