Promoting a Juvenile Awards Approval Plan: Using Collaboration and Selected Projects for Improved Visibility and Findability to Promote Juvenile Collections in Academic Libraries.

Bailey, Rachel

Shipman, T. (2014). Promoting a juvenile awards approval plan: Using collaboration and selected projects for improved visibility and findability to promote juvenile collections in academic libraries. Behavioral and Social Sciences Librarian, 33, 176-187. doi: 10.1080/01639269.2014.964592.

Summary: This article showcases a plan the University of Auburn underwent to promote awareness and use of the juvenile books collection.  Books, in particular, that had won special medals or awards were the main focus of the plan. In collaboration with professors from the education and teacher librarian departments, collections staff raised awareness of the books by creatively displaying the books, having an open house and instruction about the books, creating subject guides and adding “award winner” notes to the library catalog. Assessment of the plan showed that usage of the books had increased.

Evaluation: This perspective of this article was interesting. Being a former elementary and middle school teacher, I come from a K-12 background. It was interesting to see the process and strategies academic librarians use to promote juvenile books to the college crowd. Typically, when I think of juvenile books, I think of books that are in schools, not college libraries. The marketing of these books is what intrigued me the most. In some ways, the approach was the same for what you would use for a school age child. For example, book displays are one way to get a child to check out a book.