New & Now Collection

Great news! On behalf of the New & Now committee, it’s my pleasure to announce our new browsing bestseller collections at six pilot branches. Please take a moment to learn about this exciting opportunity for increased customer satisfaction.

What is the New & Now collection?

New & Now is a completely browsable collection that consists of high demand materials. The titles aren’t visible in ValleyCat and they are not eligible for holds. When a customer comes in, he or she can browse the New & Now collection, and whatever happens to be on the shelf that day is what’s available.

What’s in the New & Now collection?

During the pilot phase, materials in this collection will be limited to books (mostly fiction). The startup collection contains multiple copies of 21 titles, all items for which there are at least 100 holds. Each month, the pilot branches will receive brand new, high demand books (the same titles at each branch). We are making every effort to ensure that these popular books will be available for customers on their release date.

Where are the New & Now collections located?

The pilot branches are Central, Clovis, Politi, Kerman, Kingsburg, and Auberry. Central, Clovis and Politi will receive 8 copies of each new title; Kerman, Kingsburg and Auberry will receive 5 copies.  Each location has a special New & Now display area identified by the logo shown above.

Is the New & Now collection a customer’s only chance to borrow those titles?

No. These books are meant to supplement and give instant access to our current, circulating collection. They will not affect the regular purchasing of bestselling materials that customers can reserve through ValleyCat.

How will staff know what titles are available?

While the books won’t be visible in ValleyCat, they will be accessible through Horizon. These items will be assigned the collection code FXXENNC - New & Now. However, no holds can be placed on these items through either system.

For how long can these books be borrowed?

Loan time for the New & Now collection is the same as other books – three weeks.  However, they cannot be renewed. They will be assigned the itype FFI - No Holds No Renewals.

When are the New & Now books available?

The items will be shipped directly to each participating branch. The first shipment should arrive sometime next week.

What does this mean for branches not participating in the pilot?

We encourage you to tell your customers about the New & Now collections. If a customer is searching for a title and you see that it’s available at one of the pilot branches, you can explain how the New & Now collection works. For example, if a customer at Woodward wants the latest John Grisham and you see there are four copies available on the shelf at Clovis, you can tell him/her that they are available in Clovis on a first come, first serve basis.

And remember—this is a pilot, and we hope to expand to more branches in the future. Sharing this new venture with customers will help create excitement and support for the library in general. 

Questions? Email me at connie.urquhart@fresnolibrary.org. 

NOYS: Duplicate Copies

Some of you may have noticed that you are receiving duplicate copies of materials selected by youth services.  This is not a mistake and something we did intentionally as some of the popular materials can go out of print quickly.  You will most likely see this with popular books, video games and strategy guides.  If you have questions, please contact youth services.

NOYS: Stuff for the Teen Age

For 80 years, New York Public Library has been offering annually a list of teen-tested books called Books for the Teen Age. Last year it was renamed Stuff for the Teen Age and now includes movies, music and video games.

The new list was just released and it's filled with some great recommendations. The categories are:

• (Bad) Romance
• Deal With It
• For Real
• Freaks and Geeks
• Freaky Chaos
• Kick A$$
• Mystery
• New York
• ROTFL
• Zombies, Werewolves and Ghosts (Vampires are so 2008!)

When you have a free moment, check it out. We have almost all of the items on the list (just a few are on order or are video games that are rated M--and we don't buy those) and the categories are fun. You may find something to recommend to your patrons, or even to yourself!

NOYS: Weeding YS collections...

...is a communal task.

I have inherited the opportunity to coordinate the weeding of our Library’s Children’s and YA collections, there are some changes being made to this process, and I want to give branch staff a heads-up about what the plans are:

1) To use a 3 year weeding schedule based on which branch has been weeded most recently. Basically this means that aside from Central (which gets weeded every year) the plan is to weed each branch once every three years in rotation.

2) To run a circulation report on Children’s and YA collections. This will be sent directly to the branch to help get staff started on pulling older and low circ items.

3) To follow up 1 to 2 months later with a visit to the branch by YS staff to help finish the weeding for that year, and assist in better planning what items will be replaced.

This has to be a collaborative effort, so that we can assist branch staff with information and help, and branch staff can provide vital input on their particular collection, because nobody knows their collections better than they do.

Watch this spot for more general weeding news in the future, and keep an eye out for e-mails from me outlining specific info for your branch in the near future (especially Auberry, Clovis, Kingsburg, Easton, Mendota, Sanger, and of course, Central).

Feel free to contact me with any questions about weeding, or really, about anything else you need to know.

Your Branch Support Specialist – Nancy Wirt

NOYS: Fun Stuff for Teens

In these times of budget crisis, it’s even more crucial to spend every dollar wisely. Just as Adult Services has changed their approach to collection development, Youth Services is making some changes in selection as well. To view areas of responsibility among the YS Collection Development Team, go here: http://intra.fresnolibrary.org/com/child/index.html.

Among the changes in our approach to youth collections is the emphasis on selecting more fun nonfiction for teens. Circulation stats reveal that the majority of curriculum-based teen nonfiction rarely circulates, while entertainment-based nonfiction has a much higher turnover rate. This doesn’t mean we’ll stop buying homework-type books altogether, but it does mean that those books will primarily reside in bigger branches. Meanwhile, smaller branches will slowly transition into more of a popular browsing collection, much like their fiction counterparts. As always, ready reference resources and our complete set of online reference tools will be available at all branches.

This is just one of the changes we’re making in order to serve our community better and spend our money more wisely. We’ll keep you updated in further NOYS posts about other ways we’re working to create useful and well-used collections.

For samples of "fun nonfiction", check out these staff summer reading program reviews or our recommendations on read.watch.listen.

NOYS: Feeling Challenged?

I hope you can agree with me when I say that we have a great collection of materials available for patron use. There are so many diverse viewpoints, styles of presentation, and subject varieties available in our collection, it can sometimes seem overwhelming!

Questions and inquiries can arise about whether we “should” have something in our collections. If a question like this is brought to your attention about an item, please offer to provide a Materials Inquiry form to the patron so that they can fill it out, and you can send it (along with the item in question) to the proper person:

For Adult materials – Jeanne Johnson

For Children’s or Teen materials – Lisa Eckman

They will handle it from there.

NOYS: Who Do You Ask?

If you are not sure where to send those reassigns, who do you contact?

When you need an item replaced, who do you call?

Since you heard there will be changes in how the youth collections are...um...collected, what do you do next?

Here at Youth Services, we are trying to make things as simple as possible while we're changing the Collection development process.

For Children's collection questions, contact the Children's Coordinator: Kari Johnson.

For Teen collection questions, contact the Teen Coordinator: Connie Urquhart.

If you, as a staff member, want to request an addition to a collection, use this form, which will automatically be sent to the correct person.

For any situation where you are not sure WHO to contact, ask me - Your Branch Support Specialist: Nancy Wirt. If I don't know the answer, I will find someone who does.