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Here's the hit in email - the formatting's kind of wonky - sorry! Library Furniture Tips & Recommendations General Tips I would check with Brodart, Highsmith, Gaylord, Demco for quality library furniture. Check with your local office supply places but I would go with a company that makes library furniture. The school system that I worked for in the 70's purchased (the librarians were not asked) furniture from a department store. Yes, they looked nice but they didn't stand up to daily junior high school use. When a student would be writing it would shake the whole table. I don't know if you will be able to tell about this or not when you are ordering chairs . . . the chairs we bought about 5 years ago have/had little plastic disks on the bottom of the legs. These plastic disks pop off after the chair has been tipped back so many times. Once the plastic disks are off, the chairs will no loger glide across the carpet to be pushed in etc. It's like they are stuck to the floor! I don't know how you can avoid this, but you should try! If at all possible deal with a local rep from an office supply store. That way, if there is a problem...he will take care of it. Mail order places tend to drop you as soon as they make the sale. Go with rectangular tables rather than round. That way you can reconfigure to make a longer or larger table if you need to. You might ask around to see what can be made locally. A somewhat higher initial price may be offset by the transportation costs. If you have any Amish or Mennonites around your area you could talk to them. There is usually someone who is a woodworker, and they produce very high quality products at very low prices. I buy wood from the Amish around here, and can't believe the low prices. I wonder if your distict allows local competitive bids? My principal just bought $11,000 worth of new library tables, including a walk-up one $1200) that had a bad scratch on the laminate top when it arrived. I really think we could have gotten better value for less money from a local carpenter or company. Supplier Recommendations/Comments Positive TESCO Industries, right here in Bellville, TX., has great library furniture! Go to their website for more information. They make quality furniture and are easy to work with. Hicks-Ashby Company 10618 Summit Lenexa, KS 1-866-829-5414 Bob Wagner bobwagner@hicks-ashby.com I've used Brodart. Very pleased with the quality and service. eBauman@SchoolSpeciality.com Eric Bauman will hook you up! He's done numerous jobs in Oklahoma. I have used Tesco out of Texas (they have a local rep here in KC) They were great and the furniture is beautiful! Also just got some from bigcozybooks.com, very cute, cute stuff but Kind of expensive but oh, so wonderful! I opened a new library 5 years ago and needed to order new furniture at that time. I worked with Brodart and they were wonderful - they sent wood samples, gave me a discount for such a large purchase ($10,000) and replaced the two chairs broken in shipping, no questions asked. I bought solid wood furniture, nothing upholstered. I would definitely use them again. I would strongly recommend Sauder Manufacturing. I have upholstered 3-position chairs and we really like them. They made the IMC the Coolest place in the school! All of our district's campuses have library furniture from Buckstaff Library Furniture. We made that decision back in 1994 as we were preparing to build a new high school. We examined several installations by different companies in neighboring districts. Only Buckstaff had rave reviews after 10 years use. I don't think you can buy better made furniture. This is real wood - no plywood or particle board here. The frames are made of solid (red?) oak and the shelves and outside surfaces can be either a variety of wood or laminate. Buckstaff is family owned and has been in business for 156 years! Their guarantee is awesome. Call 1-800-755-5890 and ask for Frank Yench. He'll send you to the sales rep for your area. Frank is national sales VP I think. We had a very good experience with Demco Library Interiors. They coordinated deliveries with 13 different vendors, were very timely in responding to questions, need for spare hardware, etc. I dealt with Mike Schmidt, but someone else may cover your area. Saw him last week at Texas Library Assn conference and he asked me how my husband was enjoying working in China -- and I hadn't talked to Mike in about 7-8 months!! Great people to work with, everything in the huge Demco catalog and more, plus they discount a lot off the catalog prices. They can give you quote that includes shipping, etc. very quickly. Brodart has some great two-position chairs...I got so tired of telling students "four on the floor" (chair legs) that the "rocker" chair was perfect! I also ordered their "Village Lounge Furniture" with the Bookcase upholstery that teachers and students just loved. I would recommend Greg Martin of Ken Martin School Supply in Mountain Home, Arkansas. They redid my library and the furnishings are beautiful and just what I ordered. 1-800-209-7256 email info@kenmartinschoolsupply.com on-line ordering www.kenmartinschoolsupply.com. We opened a brand new library last year. Our district asked me what I wanted then sent out bids. Indeco Sales out of Belton, Texas was awarded the contract and my furniture is beautiful! I bought double sided shelves, curved shelves, casual seating, wooden chairs and tables. It has held up well so far and when we did have a problem, we called, and they were here within 2 days to fix it. They specialize in classroom, library, auditorium, science, and church furniture. The sales rep was wonderful to deal with and was accessible. (Terry Paden) Indeco Sales, Inc. 805 East 4th Ave Belton, TX 76513 1-800-692-4256 I bought furniture and shelving for my new library four years ago from Brodart. Our maintenance men put it together. I bought oak shelving and oak chairs with padded seats. Oak tables and two loveseat type chairs. I have only had one chair break and that was fixable. I saved the district $26,000 over the bid they got from a regional vendor. Negative While the furniture is sturdy I did not have a good experience with the sales people for Bretford. They wrote my request down wrong on colors, I missed it and they wouldn't correct it. I promised I'd never buy from them again. We bought a large number of computer desks for our media lab through Gaylord. I have been VERY disappointed! Many of the desks came missing parts or with the wrong hardware, and we had a terrible time getting the proper parts from them. They claimed it was the manufacturer's problem, not theirs, and wouldn't stand behind the product. We eventually got them all put together and installed (no exaggeration, 6 months to finally get all the parts) and they didn't last even one school year. They almost immediately started falling apart and Gaylord wouldn't do anything. Now, we've had them for three years and my head of maintenance spent all vacation trying to rebuild them so that we might get one more year out of them, but says he's not going to touch them again, so well have to find some money next year to replace them. Yack! They weren't cheap either (about $9000 for the whole 24 seat lab). I've had great experiences with Gaylord for supplies, but I know that I'll NEVER purchase furniture from them again. Anita Beaman, Librarian Washington Community High School Washington, IL abeaman74@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! 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