Teen Space

The other day my assistant mentioned that our teen collection was really tight. We separate our new books from older books. After six months or so, they come off the new shelf and are put into the regular collection. Since our collection is rather lacking at the moment, I didn't want to weed to many books. On the other hand, I ordered a plethora of YA non-fiction and will need to make room for the new books. Despite my hesitation to weed the collection, I created a list of books that haven't circulated in 4 years. Lo and behold, there were books on the list that hadn't circulated in nearly 10 years! Yikes.

I pulled the books that were on the list, with the exception of award books. There was only one award book; however, there were some books that were only five years old but never circulated. I decided to keep those and perhaps make a display for them. This process did not make much more room for the new books.

A few weeks back, the head of technical services pointed out an old barcode. She mentioned it to help weed the juvenile books, but I used it for my YA collection, as well. When I noticed that many of the books from the 4-year-no-circ list had the old barcode, I decided I should go through the rest of the collection to find all books with the old code. Sure enough, there were enough books to fill 2/3 of another cart.

There were some books that were outdated. They remain books discussed in classes, such as the YA materials class I took at UWM. One book, in particular, Annie on My Mind, was a super old copy. "Cover art ©1984 by Ellen Thompson" is something teens will see and immediately put back on the shelf.

This was what it looks like. Uh, no thanks. I barely want to read it, even though I know the content will be exactly the same as a newer edition. For this reason, I reordered many books that had the old barcode. The replacement book will probably take up just as much space as the old book; however, it might circulate better. So how does this help my space issue?


Well, I asked two future TAB members to come in on Monday to put together a new bookshelf. They are my superstar teens who have helped me so much with the move. It doesn't hurt that I buy them pizza and talk to them like real people. These kids are a good sign that my TAB will be a success. You can still keep your fingers crossed for me ;D