Collection Development Resources

We have a lot of new folks in youth services and someone asked me recently about collection development.  First off, I highly suggest my Connecticut colleague Kym Powe’s webinar: From Diversity to Inclusion – It’s an excellent and brief (1 hour!) summary of why we weed/audit and includes really practical suggestions for doing so – and hyperlinks! All her slides are hyperlinked and posted below the video.

If you want to do a refresh of your kids/teens collections, check out the Bank Street College yearly booklists for Best Books of the Year, they are an excellent overall compilation of recent titles that would be good additions. If I needed to do a quick refresh/update, this is the first place I would go.

You probably already know about School Library Journal, Horn Book, ALA Lists of Youth Awards.

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Booklists:
Cooperative Children’s Book Center at Univ Wisconsin Madison Booklists (for more deep dives into collection)
International Literacy Association Choices List (newest is 2020)
We Need Diverse Books Where to Find Diverse Books link

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Podcasts:
Books Between – This podcast stopped in 2019 but the blog is still quite active and for middle school reads is still a great resource
One More Page – Reviews, news, and kids lit from Australian hosts, sort of breezy/fun
Publishers Weekly PW Kidcast – mostly recently published author interviews, also episodes run fairly short
The Yarn - Interviews kids’ authors, 170-ish episodes, School Library Journal podcast  

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Author

Greta Bergquist
Youth Services Consultant
​State Library of Oregon