Assignment+1

Due February 15th
 * Collection Analysis Assignment**

For this assignment, you'll need to examine a library collection for young adults in person. This can be a local high school or middle school library collection, or the young adult section in your local public library.

You’ll need to do a cursory examination of your library’s collection as well as a more detailed analysis of one specific collection area. For example, take a look at the entire collection, then at the fiction section specifically. Or, if you'd like to be even more specific, look just at fiction with an author's last name beginning with “S.” Or just at the baseball books.

Please share the following information in your collection analysis report. Some questions may only require one sentence in answer; others may require a paragraph. Remember, this is only your initial analysis of the section and collection. In other words, you don’t need to write a book for this; final analysis should probably be no more than 3 pages and can be effectively done in less.


 * General Collection Analysis Questions **

1. What is your general impression of the library’s collection? Is it large, small, new, old? Is it appealing and well organized, or crowded and dusty? Does it appear that the books circulate well or languish on the shelf? Does the library promote books with book displays, book lists, etc.?

2. Does the library seem to have a collection that would appeal to teens? A facility that appeals to teens? Why or why not?

3. Does the library seem to have a fair representation of fiction and nonfiction? Does one section vastly outnumber the other?

4. Does there seem to be a good mix of curriculum resources and recreational reading materials? Are there new young adult books in the fiction section? Are there classics? Are there “fun” nonfiction books? Books that tie to the curriculum/school topics? Audiobooks? Ebooks?

5. How would you rate the teen collection on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the ideal collection?

**Specific Collection Area Questions** – answer these questions about the smaller section you chose to examine in detail.

6. What specific section have you chosen to focus on for your collection analysis? Why?

7. Provide a general description of the materials within your section (estimated number of materials, condition, circulation, etc).

8. What is the average age of the materials on your topic in your collection? To determine this, you may simply do a sampling of books – I'm only looking for an estimated date.