Collection Reflection

Following my own advice from yesterday's  post on collection maintenance , I checked in and organized all the young adult graphic novels (with the blessing of the YA librarian). Leaving aside the manga for another day, I estimate that we have over 400 YA graphic novels (on the shelf). Upon checking them in, I found: 19 items marked "missing" 3 items marked "lost" 4 items with holds 2 items with notes/cataloging problems 2 graphic novels from the adult collection 1 YA paperback 1 item marked "display" I also pulled out several items to potentially move to another part of the library (e.g., a Garfield collection that could go live with the other Garfield collections). The process took less than three hours, for which I was also on desk. Right after I finish these tasks, I always have a strong urge to hover protectively near the section and put things away as soon as people use them, but I also know (in my rational moments) that a messy colle...

Last year, I volunteered to take over ordering the young adult video games for my library. Unlike the rest of my collection development duties, which are focused on materials at the central library (we also have nine branches), the games are a citywide collection. Although they are all located at one branch for security reasons--they kept wandering off when they were stored here--they can be requested by patrons anywhere in the region. 1 I've done a couple of orders over the past year or so since I became responsible for this area, but hadn't really taken a close look at the numbers until recently. I ran a report (of course) and tried to break down what I was seeing in ways that would be useful for my collection decisions going forward. This is also the only non-print collection that I am responsible for, and boy are the numbers different from what I'm used to seeing, especially in comparison with the nonfiction collection! The most prominent statistic was probably the ...