Buying Books for Teens

Ethel and I like to think we run a pretty busy teen library. We try to think like teenagers when selecting books and putting up displays (scary thought, that one), and we are successful. Several years ago, I wrote a grant and part of that grant process involved surveying all of our students on what materials they would like to see in the media center. Yes, we surveyed all 1200 of them. We passed out surveys in first bell, and had teachers collect them immediately. We put the results in databases--one for females, one for males. It was an eye opener--surprisingly, our students took it seriously. We realized many things--that students can name over 350 different magazine titles (not all appropriate for the library), that we have books already in the media center that they wanted (so we probably needed to do more PR on those), and many other interesting tidbits. If you'd like to see a copy of the survey we sent to students click HERE. Feel free to copy it. It is about time for us to do this survey again--maybe at the beginning of next year. The hardest and most time-consuming part was analyzing the data and putting it into a usable format. Lucy and Ethel do suggest you try it--you will learn so much from your students!