Midday Mingle: Collection Complications

The next Midday Mingle is on the horizon!  

Join us on Monday, April 20 at 1:00 PM as we talk about troubleshooting collection development:

• Taking flak from patrons about books you’ve weeded?
• Having trouble finding new sources since Baker & Taylor closed?
• Desperate for tips on dealing with difficult, yet popular, collections?

Whatever collection problems you’re dealing with, come share them and we’ll brainstorm solutions together!

Youth Services Section Midday Mingle: Collection Complications

Monday, April 20, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Zoom link  

You do not have to be a YSS or WLA member to participate. The Midday Mingle is open to all!

Handy Resource Alert!

Series fiction is forever growing and expanding.  Trying to think of a certain title?  Unsure what order the books follow?  Or perhaps there are oodles of mini series within a much larger title and it's impossible to remember them all? (I'm looking at you, Rainbow Magic.)

Here's a bookmark-worthy link to add to your browser!

What's Next^®: Books in Series Database of Kent District Library

Developed and maintained by the Kent District Library, the What's Next database allows you to search by author, book title, series title, or genre; you can also select what category you'd prefer: adult vs. youth.  There's even a handy option to open up a printer friendly book list of your findings, should you want to send it along with a curious patron, etc.

YSS Regional Meet Up - April 19

YSS Regional Meet Up - North West Area

Friday, April 19 | 12:30-4:00 PM

Cost: $0

Starts at:    Grantsburg Public Library, 415 S Robert St, Grantsburg, WI 54840

Ends at:     Spooner Memorial Library, 421 High St, Spooner, WI 54801

(The drive between libraries is approximately 45 minutes.)

Agenda:

12:30 pm     Welcome and Introductions at Grantsburg Public Library

12:45 pm     Collection Management Discussion and Tour

2:00 pm       Drive to Spooner Memorial Public Library

3:00 pm       Spooner Memorial Library tour and Letting Go of Programming discussion

Need help advocating for a new collection? Have one that’s a hot mess? At Grantsburg Public Library we will be engaging in conversations about success, failures, and all other things collection management related. 

We will then make the beautiful drive to the Spooner Memorial Public Library. After a tour, we will be chatting about when and how to let go of programs, just in time for summer reading!  Snacks will provided to help with the challenging feelings (or not!) of discontinuing a program.

Bring a friend or colleague that isn't a YSS member yet and let them see the benefits YSS membership has to offer.

Please RSVP here:https://goo.gl/forms/JP2pcPMLEGdZX3qh1

Questions? Email Claire Parrish at claireparrish@ricelakegov.org

Teen Spring Flings: Romance Novels 2019

In honor of Valentine's Day I thought it would be fun to share Publishers Weekly's list of Teen Spring Flings: Romance Novels 2019.  Some of the titles are already out and some are still awaiting release.  Share the love!

Flip the Children’s Space: A Face Lift for Kids?

In the recent WAPL session, Flip the Children’s Space: A Face Lift for Kids?, Patricia S. Becker and Susan Queiser from Barron Public Library shared how they transformed a 103-year-old Carnegie library into a space that would welcome children and families to stay and read. Before their transformation, families would stay at the library only for approximately 15 minutes. Now, they regularly have families in the library for an hour visit.

Their project included transforming their picture book collection into a hybrid system of both subject bins (using freezer crates), and alphabetized shelves. For non-fiction, they used a version of Dewey Light that was driven by the question, “Why are we using decimals in our non-fiction collections when students do not learn decimals until 4^th grade?” Wanting to make the space more intuitive for kids, they did away with the numbers altogether and instead organized their non-fiction books into subjects.

They also bravely added new shelf tops in a fun style, a new desk, weeded a substantial part of their collections to showcase their best books (and to reveal holes in their collection) and also created a tween area. No additional staff time was used for this 13-month project, and all the weeding and re-cataloging happened during regular staff hours. To make the project more interesting, they began the project the same day as their summer reading program opened. The results have been substantial, for both patrons and staff. Now, families are staying in the library longer because they have places to sit and read, thanks to new furniture purchased through Wayfair. Also, the children’s librarian can how shelf-read the non-fiction books in 25 minutes. Before this transformation, that project took two days.

Throughout the process, the history of the Carnegie building was preserved, with the original shelving, colors, and layout still represented. This respect to the library’s heritage, while having the courage to re-learn everything we have been taught about how to shelve books, has allowed their library to thrive as a destination in their community. Both speakers welcomed questions for any librarian considering a similar project.

Check out other WAPL youth program reports from the April 27-28 conference (links will be highlighted when published):

• This is a Not a Hit Zone: Promoting Healthy Kids and Safer Communities at Your Library - Dawn Wacek, Dana Johnson
• It's Not Just the Facts, Ma'am!": Creating and Marketing a Dynamic Youth NF Collection - Marge Loch-Wouters
• Teach and Be Taught- Teens in the Library - Emily Sanders
• STEAM Programming on a Budget: Planning High Interest Programs to Engage Families and Youth - Emily Zorea
• YSS Leadership Meeting
• Return of the Notable Books Report - Leah Langby etal
• Sound Learning: Read-Alongs Enhancing Literacy Development - Sharon Grover, Jamie Swenson
• All Play Literature Engagement for Public Libraries - Ashlee Kunkel, Valerie Edwards

Stop here at the WAPL conference website for all the session handouts and slidedecks.

Middle Grade Collection

Pixabay

Most librarians have a few ideas for collections that they would do if they only had the space and time. A middle grade collection is one of mine.  The article "Dedicated Middle School Collections in Public Libraries: A New Trend?" in School Library Journal, though, is inspiring me to just go for it.

Space is the biggest issue at my library. It is a small one. There is hope for a new library but that's a few years down the road. I struggle finding the right place for the collection. After reading the SLJ article along with one in Booklist, I need to carve out a space even if not ideal in order to make it easier for young people in 5th to 8th grade to find books. (In my community, the intermediate school is 5th-6th grade and middle school is 7th-8th grade. I'm using that as the basis for my middle grade collection.)

I lied. Time is always a problem! Thankfully, I work with an amazing Technical Services department that is well trained and good at planning. They're supportive of ideas that promote the collections and improve the patron experience.

Do you have a middle grade collection? How do you define middle grade? 4th-6th? 6th - 8th? Is it a thriving collection?

Upcoming Webinar - YSS Powerhouse Presents: Transforming Collections

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Ever heard of Picture Book City? Thinking about how a tween collection might work at your library? Join us for a webinar on April 1, 2016 at 10:00 AM CDT hosted by the Indianhead Federated Library System (IFLS), and will be archived and made available in early April.

Reprising their popular 2015 WLA Conference session, YSS members Kelsey Johnson-Kaiser (LaCrosse) and Katherine Elchert (Rice Lake) will discuss their experiences with the process of creating nontraditional collections, how the changes affect circulation and patrons, and how you can start defining your community’s needs and build creative collections of your own.  


Registration link:  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6210462060122888962

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Link to Recorded Webinar: Collection Connections

If you missed the recent YSS Powerhouse Presents webinar, Collection Connections, or if you want to refer to it again, you can see it right here:  https://vimeo.com/140210587.

Organizing Picture Books by Subject

If you've ever heard the question - "Where are your truck books?" or "Where are your ABC books?" or "Do you have books about ...?" then you may have thought about organizing your picture books by subject. Patti from the Barron Public Library recently wrote about her experience creating subject access to picture books for the Indianhead Federated Library System blog Keeping Up With Kids. You can read that post here.

Teacher Resource Collections

Hi this is Kristin from West Bend. I was recently meeting with my trusty book man and I asked if he knew any publishers besides Scholastic that sold teacher resource books. How come I never see anyone selling them? He said he didn't get much demand for them. And that made me wonder....

How many libraries purchase "teacher books"?
Do they circulate well?
Are they located in a separate spot?
AND WHERE do you purchase them from?

I wonder if having teacher resources is dependent on the size of the library? West Bend is a midsize library. We serve a community of about 30,000. We currently have 414 books in our Teacher Resource collection and 58 are checked out.

I'd be curious to hear from other librarians. Please tell us about your libraries teacher resources in the comments. Or lack there of. Why did you decide not to go that route?

Picture Book Place

YSS member Kathy Larson, youth services librarian at the G.E. Bleskacek Family Memorial Library in Bloomer, is presenting a session a the WLA Conference this fall about her massive picture book reorganization project.  The session, "Picturing a New Way to Find Picture Books" will be held Friday at 10:45 am.  For more in-depth information about the Picture Book Place project, check out Kathy's excellent blog From the Short Stacks (which has great posts about a bunch of other stuff, too)

 To tickle your interest, we asked Kathy a few questions about her project and her presentation.

What made you decide to try this new arrangement for your picture books?

I’ve always organized my personal picture books by categories rather than author, it made topical books a lot easier to find (dinosaurs, apples, zoo). I restructured two different childcare centers libraries into that format at well. All of the teachers at the centers loved it because it made planning time so much faster. Once I saw that a few public libraries had done it in their libraries, I immediately started making plans to reorganize our library. I did not have the major categories in my personal library like some other libraries I have found, but it seemed to make sense to lump smaller categories together for the public.

What were some of your favorite resources for your project?

My main models were Picture BookCity, the METIS system developed by some librarians in NYC, and the Darien Public Library.   All of them are pinned to my Pinterest board (along with links to my own project).

 I took the main ideas from those three resources and looked at how they would work at our library, then moved them around a little, tweaked them a little and came up with my own system which I talk about extensively on my blog http://fromtheshortstacks.blogspot.com.

What are some of the cool things you plan to discuss at your WLA session?

I plan on talking about the process, the categories, how we went about processing and organizing the books, and how it is going so far. I love numbers and statistics so be on the lookout for some graphs!

Anything else you want to tell us?

It has been well received. For the most part books are easier to find when looking for a certain topic of books like frogs, bedtime stories, the Three Little Pigs books, trucks, dinosaurs, etc., I ran into problems when I wanted to do a fish storytime and had to look in Favorites, Concepts, and Pond (talk about annoying having to go to 3 different shelves for books!).