Presentation for LIS 6120 discussing YA Reader's Advisory issues based on public library reference desk observations.

1. YA Reader’s
Advisory: A
Public Library
Reference Desk
Issue
Presented by
Melissa Adkins
LIS 6120

2. Library P: An Overview
 Suburban public
library
 21,000 sq feet of
space; one floor
 90,000 physical items
on site
 Electronic resources
accessed through
consortium
membership
 1 reference desk
location
 RD staffed by 2
MLIS-holding full-
time librarians and
6 part-time staff
 No dedicated YA
librarians

3. Recent Issue: Lack of YA
Bestseller Availability
 Recently, the local high school English
department assigned book reports to
every class
 Up to 40 students a day were asking for
help at the reference desk
 Can you guess which books were asked
for most often?

4. Most Requested
 The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
 Divergent, Veronica Roth
 The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
 The Maze Runner, James Dasher
*Every title on this list is currently on the YA or
YA Series NYT Bestseller List*

5. Complications
 Because of the popularity of the books
requested, most of them were unavailable
and had waiting lists dozens of patrons long
 When the reference staff tried to offer
alternative titles, frequent responses were:
 “That looks boring!”
 “I’ve never heard of it.”
 “That’s not really what I was looking for,
thanks anyway.”

6. Why This Matters to Reference
 Despite a current “creative renaissance”
in YA lit(Cart, 2009), adolescents want to
read what their friends are reading,
making RA challenging
 Staff members make the common
mistake of using genre hallmarks to guide
Reader’s Advisory, i.e., “If they want to
read Hunger Games, they must like
dystopian novels.”

7. Resolutions
 Make the best of the situation!
 RA can be improved by asking the right
questions (Chelton, 2003): why does the
patron like or want to read a particular
book?
 Create hype for lesser-known books and
authors

8. References and Further
Reading
 Cart, M. (2009). The
renaissance continues:
young adult literature
for the 21st century.
Catholic Library
World. 79, 279-285
 Chelton, M. K. (2003).
Readers' advisory 101.
Library Journal,
128(18), 38-39