minutes_10_september_woollahara_library_readers

NSW Readers' Advisory Working Group meeting minutes
2. Attendance
4. Jo Potter - Young Adult Collection- selections
5. Hiba Kanj presents on Readers Advisory Services for Young adults.
6. Wiki
7. Readers Advisory tools and resources
8. What have you been reading?
9. Points for communication
Save the Date: Tuesday 26 November

NSW Readers' Advisory Working Group meeting minutes

Woollahara and online, 10 September 2019

Focus of meeting is Youth and Working with Young People.

Chair: Amy Heap

Minutes: Monique Akauola

1. Apologies

Helen Cowen

Eric Dodson

2. Attendance

Amy Heap- Riverina

Monique Akauola- Sutherland

Bess Gilmore - Waverley

Alice Beattie - Rockdale

Patra Petronilos - Woollahra

Lauren Castan - Woollahra

Joanne Potter - Ku Ring Gai

Ellen Forsyth - State Library NSW

Natalie Funston - Rockdale

Caitlin Wallace - City of Sydney

Renee Fittler -Mosman

Erin Pelquest-Hunt - Woollahra

Catherine Goldzieher- Blue Mountains

Yvonne Jones- Central Coast Council Libraries

Beckie Copland - Central Coast Libraries

Shazia Iftikhav- Canterbury Bankstown Libraries

Sharon Muscat - The Hills

Birgit Schickinger - Randwick City Council Library

Carleen Bonora - Northern Beaches

Eva Resiak Campbelltown City Library

Jayashree Menon - Stanton Library

Eliza Luciano - Stanton Library

Rebekah Jeffery - Burwood Library

*Note there were additional online participants, but not all their details were provided. There were approximately 20 people participating online.

Acknowledgement of country

3. Introductions

4. Jo Potter - Young Adult Collection- selections

Jo Potter is a former Children's librarians with over 30 years experience and provided some great tips about purchasing books for Young Adult collections:

Know your budget and understand your audience.
Be prepared for the fact that you will occasionally buy "lemons". If you like a title, take a chance. It will work or it won't.
Have the courage to speak up if you don't want particular titles, even if they are popular. Just because they are popular doesn't mean that they will be borrowed by your audience - you don't have to buy it.
If the physical book is available, flick through it read the blurb. If you like it, buy it and hope for the best!
Review the profile that has been set up for your library and check the standing author list and quantities are still relevant to your audience.
Monitor the Australian YA title lists continuously.
When purchasing ensure processing and cataloguing costs are included.
Ensure you have a good communication channel with the person at the other end.
Are there any key titles- emerging or classic? Examples of authors to include:

John Flanagan
Robert Muchamore
Holly Black
Cassandra Clare

Ensure books on Premiers Reading Challenge List are included.
Use series tags to to link to the main English themes (school).
Consider different formats such as ebooks. Teens may not like these, as they may remind them of school. They may have a preference for physical books.
Hardbacks vs Paperbacks: hardbacks are more durable, paperbacks are borrowed more. Scuffed paperbacks can indicate that books have been borrowed by someone else and can make the book more attractive to borrow.

Graphic Novels

You need to set up a profile. Go to Kinokunya for a day and check out what's selling. Find someone who reads graphic novels to assist with selection.

Try not to censor collection. Jo's rule of thumb for shelving:

Innocent- Kids section
Suggestive- teens
More explicit- adult
Consider level of violence when shelving.

Super heroes are shelved based on a sticker on the spine with the first four letters of superheroes name. Manga has been shelved separately as the damage rate on these is high, with all manga and anime shelved together.

5. Hiba Kanj presents on Readers Advisory Services for Young adults.

Including a partnership with YMCA

Hiba Kanj has been the Children and Youth Services Librarian at Parramatta for the past 8 years.

Brief History:

The Parramatta Library was in a temporary building close to public transport and Westfield. There were lots of people coming through the doors including young people. However, there were incidents and it became necessary to engage security guards.

It was decided to review the strategy to improve the situation and engage young people in the library. Challenges included little space, lots of young people wanting to utilise the space. The community was consulted on how to manage the library space, this resulted in the provision of a youth worker being employed at the library. This role is funded by council and is a pilot program which may be extended. The youth workers role includes Children and Youth programming and youth engagement outreach to schools and youth. She works to engage with young people in Parramatta precinct, using assertive outreach and is also developing relationships with staff and speaking to them about youth and what they need.

The objectives of this strategy:

Create a welcoming inclusive space.
Build positive relationships with Young people, referring them to the library.
Build security and staff capacity and assist them.
Educate library staff in how to effectively engage with young people.
Youth in the area recognise the youth worker and speak with her.
Increase youth programming- the youth worker is an extra person who can assist with this.

YMCA collaboration

A Young Leader Group meets fortnightly in the library where young people come to discuss issues of concern.

A suite of projects have been developed as a result of these meetings.

Wear It Purple Book Display

Youth indicated that they felt they had nothing to read, they perceived the book collection as not inclusive or diverse and they don't use the website or eresources.

As a result, The Wear It Purple book display was created. This display is located in a high traffic area of the library, and is a book display with inclusive titles. People walk past this display and borrow books they may not have borrowed otherwise. It helped young people to feel that they were seen in the library.

Youth specific Book Marks

These were created in collaboration with young people. The LGBTQIA+ titles were chosen by youth.

RA all about books booklet

Includes book reviews and suggestions of upcoming books. This includes a section dedicated to YA books. The feedback from teens was it's a great idea but needs to look more teen friendly. The Youth Leaders group will be designing this for future editions and will have input on titles included.

Summer Reading Club

This is being revamped to suit teens.

Staff Training

Working with youth
Dealing with aggression

6. Wiki

How to find it

Here is the link to NSW Public Library Wiki You can also find it on NSW Readers Advisory Wiki which has a hyperlink directing you to the new wiki.

How to join it

To join the wiki go to about this wiki If you want to join now fill in your information here.

Login

Go to the login at top right hand side of page. Enter your user name and password.

You know you are logged in as you can edit and it also says log out. Click on Beta Wiki to get back to the home page.

Edit it

The wiki is just that, a wiki, designed as a resource we can all contribute to. To edit a page, click on the pen symbol on the right hand side of page. Remember to save by clicking on save at the bottom of the page you are editing. You can preview to check your work.

Helpful tip to naming things:

It is really important to use the naming convention so we can find things. Every url has the working group name at the end. There are more than one group using this wiki and if the information is not identified, it could belong to any group.

Use the conventions found under About this Wiki.

When the text is red, it means the navigation is set up, but there is no text behind it yet. The easiest way to create a new page is to edit a page that is already there, and add to it.

Go in and try to edit a page that is already there and add to it, or edit something and then change it back. start small. You are leaving a trail.

Go into edit to learn coding. The page shows coding used. ie. use of double brackets ([ ])either side of a phrase to create a new page. You can upload pictures, embed slide shows and videos.

Anyone can delete a page. If you do accidentally delete a page, please email Ellen Forsyth, Mylee Joseph, Kate O'Grady or Simon- the NSW State Library admins. (If you are desperate, can can try and ring).

You don't need to ask for permission!!

Update

The working bee has been migrating data over from the old wikis. Currently, the Readers Advisory group are up to moving book lists across. These are found under Reading suggestions. If you would like to add a list, always add readers advisory to the end.

There has been a lot of thought put into the structure of reading suggestions. The working group have decided broadly what the lists would be called. The green text have text behind them- click on these to see lists of books. The black text next to the green links - describing the lists can be changed by anyone. You can create a new list if you think we need a new list, but please ensure you name it properly including readers advisory at the end.