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.