[Michlib-l] Responses for Tween Collection

Thu Aug 9 11:06:05 EDT 2018

Hi all, 

Here are the compiled responses regarding tween collections. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. 

Hello from Commerce Township! 

· Did you take books from existing J/Teen collections and create a Tween collection or did you start from scratch? 

-We created a Tween collection by basically creating an Early Chapter Book collection. We went through our entire JFic collection and pulled anything out that was grades 1-3, which we moved into an Early Chapter Book collection. This essentially left us with a Tween collection (grades 4-6) in our JFic. 

· Have your circ stats increased from books that were moved over, if you used books in your existing collection? 

-I'm not sure how to check this myself, but I would say yes. 

· Feedback from patrons (positive or negative)? 

-Patron reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. They love being able to find the books their child can read in one spot, as opposed to having every single chapter book in the same area, as we had before. I think the kids like it too, because they don't see the "little kid" books (Stilton, etc) in their area. 

· If you have a collection, do you separate the books or keep them interfiled with a tween sticker on the spine? 

-We have all of our grades 4-6 fiction shelved in one spot. The only time we label a book with a Tween sticker is if the book has adult themes (like molestation in The Summer of Owen Todd). We wanted to keep the books in the JFic area, but put the label on to alert patrons that it had mature content for that age group. 

· Do you find that there are too many places to send patrons looking for materials? (This was a question brought to me when I said I wanted to investigate this collection) 

-Our pages certainly think so! But patrons have not complained. Honestly, they have been super positive about it. 

· Procedure for your processing staff on how to determine what goes in tween? 

-The librarian who is in charge of this collection makes that decision (and the department head if there are questions) 

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    * Did you take books from existing J/Teen collections and create a Tween collection or did you start from scratch? YES 
    * Have your circ stats increased from books that were moved over, if you used books in your existing collection? YES 
    * Feedback from patrons (positive or negative)? POSITIVE!! Overwhelmingly positive. 
    * If you have a collection, do you separate the books or keep them interfiled with a tween sticker on the spine? Separate space 
    * Do you find that there are too many places to send patrons looking for materials? (This was a question brought to me when I said I wanted to investigate this collection) NO 
    * Procedure for your processing staff on how to determine what goes in tween? I make the decisions, so we don't need written guidelines for circ staff. I do have guidelines that I use. (Age of protagonist, storyline, language) 
    * Anything else you can think of that might be relevant/helpful? The best way to describe a tween collection is "a bridge from Juvenile to Teen." These are the books that are too old for juvenile readers, but they do not contain the heavy issues that are found in some teen books. This is not to say that you don't put "problem novels" in tween, you just make sure they are age-appropriate. ________________________________________ ____________________________________________ 

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Did you take books from existing J/Teen collections and create a Tween collection or did you start from scratch? At Novi, we used our existing collections to start a tween collection. We pulled books from both youth fiction and YA fiction. We knew that we would have a great deal of books being pulled from both collections, so a tip would be to make sure you have the space to accommodate the new collection. 
    * Have your circ stats increased from books that were moved over, if you used books in your existing collection? We have found that books that were not circulating in the youth and/or YA fiction collections have now circulated better in the tween fiction collection. We started the tween fiction collection is March 2016 and all the books in that collection have circulated to date. 

 Feedback from patrons (positive or negative)? The Library has received positive feedback from patrons regarding the Tween Collection. Patrons, especially parents, often mention that having tween books separate from the youth and teen collections makes it easier for them to find age appropriate books for their children. 

    * If you have a collection, do you separate the books or keep them interfiled with a tween sticker on the spine? Our tween fiction collection has its own designated collection area. It is shelved after the youth fiction collection. Our YA collections are housed on the second floor of the Library. At the time of the creation of our tween fiction collection, there were no professional stickers available. The Library made its own “tween” sticker. 
    * Do you find that there are too many places to send patrons looking for materials? (This was a question brought to me when I said I wanted to investigate this collection) No! It actually makes it much easier when doing reference interviews and reader’s advisory with patrons. It is especially helpful when a middle school student is looking to browse, as all the books that have appropriate content and are appealing to that age group are kept in one spot. At Novi, we made sure to only have books in one collection regardless of appeal. For example, Harry Potter could have appeal for teens, but we have all copies in the tween fiction collection. 
    * Procedure for your processing staff on how to determine what goes in tween? We have one Information Services Librarian who purchases the youth fiction, tween fiction, and YA fiction, so this librarian makes the call as to which collection the book belongs in. This librarian looks at professional reviews to see what is recommended age group. Lots of professional reviews have caught on to the popularity of tween fiction collections, and as a result, the reviews reflect these age groups (i.e. grades 4-8 or grades 5-8 or ages 9-12 or ages 10-14). 
    * Anything else you can think of that might be relevant/helpful? 

In the Novi Community School District, grades fifth and sixth are in their own building separate from the seventh and eighth grade students. Librarians found that these students who utilized the Novi Public Library did not know where to find books suited for their grade level. Our librarians wanted to give middle school students a place of their own in the Library to find materials that interested them. The Tween Collection helped to accomplish this, as these students could easily identify titles similar to those they would find at their school library as well as other titles that they may not have discovered yet. 

Furthermore, the Tween Collection was created as a result of patrons looking for middle grade books that were found in both our youth and young adult collections. Through reference interviews, librarians found that parents were reluctant to let their middle school child look for a book that was housed in the teen room (located on the second level of our Library). The goal was to make it easier to find age-appropriate books for middle school aged children all in one place. 

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At Farmington Community Library, we have a Tween collection that was developed a couple years ago by one of our Teen Librarians, Jennie Willard. She presented about it along with a Librarian from Novi at Spring Institute in 2016, and I’ve attached the documents and presentation they used. Most of the items selected for the Tween collection came from our existing YA collection, though a Children’s Librarian gave some older J fiction items to add as well. Since then we have a designated budget for acquiring new Tween items and replacement copies for popular titles. 

In general, adding the Tween collection was definitely the right decision for us. Feedback from patrons has generally been good. Parents of tweens are particularly excited about it; I frequently talk to parents who are noticing that their kids are too old for most of the juvenile fiction we have, but they’re concerned about some of the content in our YA fiction collection. 

We have a Tween sticker that we use instead of the YA sticker on items for this collection. The collection is still considered part of our YA fiction collection, but with the shelf location listed as Tween Fiction. Patrons get a little confused, but I think that’s because our Tween collection ends in the middle of a row of shelves and the regular YA fiction starts immediately after it. Our goal moving forward is to have the Tween collection take up one row and make sure the signage is clear. 

We typically consider any items that are grades 5-9, ages 10-14, or somewhere in that range. Since we have different librarians ordering for the J Fiction, YA Fiction, and Tween Fiction collections, we tend to check in with each other on items that we’re not sure which of us should purchase. 

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At my last library in IL, I inherited a middle school fiction collection, and I would honestly not recommend creating one. This collection annually had the worst circulation in the entire library, primarily because everyone self-selects out of this age group. After surveying patrons, we learned that middle school students like to think that they are more mature, and they prefer to shop around in the Teen collection. Parents who were directed to a book in the middle school collection opted for JFic, because thinking of their 6th grader as a teen scared them. We started doing some additional testing by putting copies of books in both places (where appropriate), and the Teen and JFic books always circ'ed significantly more. Let me know if you have any questions. 

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We started the Tween programming here in 2010 and consider tweens kids in 4th-6th grade. Our teen program begins with 7th. 

We don't classify books as "Tween" except to say that all of our J fiction in the Children's room is considered that age range (4th-6th grade) and books upstairs in our YA room are, of course, considered "teen". So I guess we got around labeling things "tween" and instead consider simply juvenile fiction as tween fiction. 

We do have a display for "New Tween Books" that is quite popular with this age group. Once again, these are labeled on the spine as "J" fiction. 

I'm a very small library, and when I took over from the previous director, our collection essentially went from J to YA. After some thought, we created Preteen and Teen sections. Our preteen is 9-11, teen is 11-14, and YA is 15+ (J is 9 and under, which includes picture books and beginner chapter books). This makes it SOOOO much easier for the age groups to find the books that not only interest them, but are age appropriate. We went into our system and re-cataloged them accordingly (T and PT). 

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Tecumseh District Library 

My Tween Collection is geared for fifth graders through seventh graders; each library defines their Tween parameters differently, I have found! This age/grade range works for us. This is not to say that only these students check out the Tween books, of course! Many kids in the lower levels love the Big Nate series and the James Patterson books, etc. and gravitate towards them. 

    1. I began to build my Tween Collection by re-cataloging upper reading level J Fiction books and also by buying brand new books. My new Teen Librarian also passed along some existing YA series to re-catalog as Tweens because they were really too young for her teen collection but too old to be placed in the children's chapter books. 
    2. I have not had any negative feedback from patrons. at all. Folks got used to the location of the new collection and seemed happy to have an "in-between" section. I personally love my Tween Collection! 
    3. My Tween Collection is a separate entity and is shelved independently from the Juvenile Chapter books, but it is nearby. The spine labels read T FIC REA and J FIC SCH, for example, so our Circulation Staff knows where to shelve the books. 
    4. No, this has not resulted in a feeling of having too many places to send people to look for books! The Juvenile Collection is adjacent to the Tween Collection so it is not a hardship to scoot from one collection to the other!! The Young Adult Collection is on the other side of the building but the kids have no problems walking over to that section if they are interested in teen books. Plus, if patrons happen to use the card catalog during their search, the location clues on the call letters tell them where to look: J Fic, T Fic, or YA Fic. 
    5. As the Children's Librarian, I make the determination when I build my orders or when I catalog of which collection my books go in, Juvenile or Tween! The processing staff then prepares the book according to my decision. 
    6. If you have any questions, please feel free to call or e-mail! 

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This is from 2015, but may come in handy: [ https://blogs.wayne.edu/yacityyac/2015/02/27/group-two-first-blogsquestions-about-services-for-children-and-teens/ | https://blogs.wayne.edu/yacityyac/2015/02/27/group-two-first-blogsquestions-about-services-for-children-and-teens/ ] 

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A year and a half ago I was asked to take-on ordering Tween books, thereby creating a Tween collection. We have a small library, so it was decided to not give the Tweens their own location. They are housed within the Teen and JFIC collections, with a designated TWEEN sticker above the spine label. 

That being said, I spent the first few months researching what I wanted the parameters of Tween books to be, going through our existing collections, changing records, and adding designation stickers. I only work 11 hours each week at this library, so this could probably have been done more quickly. As I shelf books now, I will still scan the collections to see if there are other items that should be changed to Tween. 

I've been ordering books and building the Tween collection for just over a year now. My biggest challenge is that after I have created my order, I have to double check our inventory, as well as both the Teen and the JFIC orders to make sure they haven't already ordered something that I am interested in. This is very time consuming. I am also selective with what I order due to limited space and budget. 

As for processing, the difficulty for me comes in deciding if the new additions should be housed in JFIC or Teen. Deciding if the content is more mature than a JFIC label, or too immature for a Teen label has caused many a headache. (It would be SO much easier to just have a home location for the Tween, with a Tween spine label, so if you can, then do so.) When I place my orders, I print a copy of the order and then make notes as to how I want the spine label to read so those processing will know what to do. At first, there was a lot of second guessing my decisions by coworkers, due to other libraries having the books in a different home location. I felt I had to defend my thinking. The collection I am building is based on our patrons, currently owned series, reviews from multiple sources, and recommended age/grade from multiple sources. I also take the age of the main character into consideration as well as the content. Some orders are easy, some not so easy. 

Yes, we have noticed an upward trend in circulation. Parents appreciate the age appropriateness of the Tween collection and the ease of finding the books with the orange Tween stickers whether they are in the JFIC or Teen collection-they are easy to spot. 

-Addison Twp. 

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Thanks! 

Jessica Wilhoite 

Assistant Director/Youth Librarian 
Romulus Public Library 
11121 Wayne Rd. 
Romulus, MI 48174 
(734) 942-7589 

Serving Romulus and Huron Township Residents 

“I see libraries and librarians as front-line soldiers in the war 
against illiteracy and the lack of imagination.” -Neil Gaiman 

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