"A decent library can mark a hotel out from its competitors, give it a nicely intellectual feel, and supply guests with another reason to stay in and buy a drink. It is perhaps a shame when hotels decide that a task as fun and indeed personal as choosing their libraries' contents should not be done in-house by someone familiar with the locale. But swankier operations may be nervous about choosing inappropriately and tainting their brand, and anyway they may not have a bookworm on staff. Thus it becomes sensible to invest a bit of money—up to $30,000 in some cases—to ensure a bit of professional nous is applied to the selection. Those hotels that use the Ultimate Library's services do not necessarily let Mr Blackwell’s team get on with the job unimpeded. “With one hotel,” he says, “we had to come up with 150 books and justify each one.”
The Economist
