AT THE LIBRARY: Collection development is librarian’s passion

As the adult services librarian, I love all parts of my job, but collection development is by far my passion. It is my honor to maintain the adult, young adult, comic, and junior comic collections. Let me walk you through my process.

Every month, I take patron requests and keep a finger on the pulse of all things media. One of my primary resources is BookPage, the free magazine we give out to patrons. BookPage is full of professional book recommendations and reviews. I read BookPage cover to cover and decide what books would best suit our community needs. I also use our book recommendation database, Novelist. Novelist provides professional reviews, genres, styles, read-a-likes, and so much more. Novelist is available to use for you at home as well. Ask any of our staff to give you a tour of that amazing resource.

While I love using all the professional resources at my disposal, patrons are my favorite research tool. I love chatting with people at the front desk or in the stacks about what they want to see in the library. I'm currently working on beefing up our self-help, with titles by Brene Brown and Rachel Hollis, based on patron requests.

I then take a look at our various vendors and do price comparisons and evaluate what I need to this month, versus what I can put off until a later date. It's hard to balance what people want and what we need for a comprehensive collection. Books about estate planning or Robert's Rules of Order might be boring, but they are important for a comprehensive collection. But buying patron requests are way more exciting.

I hope this provides some insight on how I do my job! If you have any book, movie, audiobook, music cd, dvd/blu-ray requests, talk to us at the front desk! I give every request a great amount of thought and will definitely let you know if it's something I can get!

New Materials

Adult Fiction

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe

The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

Gravity is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty

Inland by Tea Obreht

City of Windows by Robert Pobi

First Cosmic Velocity by Zach Power

Marilou is Everywhere by Sarah Elaine Smith

Adult Nonfiction

The Road Back To You by Ian Morgan Cron

The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates

Icing on the Cake by Tessa Huff

Strange Harvests by Edward Posnett

Perfect Pan Pizza by Peter Reinhart

Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger

The White Devil's Daughter by Julia Flynn Siler

Adult Biography

Haben by Haben Girma

Young Adult Fiction

The Revenge Playbook by Rachael Allen

Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar

Blood on my Hands by Todd Strasser

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten

P.S. I Like You by Kasie West

Juvenile Fiction

The Basque Dragon by Adam Gidwitz

The Chupacabras of the Rio Grande by Adam Gidwitz

The Creature of the Pines by Adam Gidwitz

A Slip of a Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff

Easy Children's

What Riley Wore by Elana K. Arnold

What Does an Anteater Eat? by Ross Collins

There's an Alien in Your Book by Tom Fletcher

Underwear! by Jenn Harney

Clothesline Clues to the First Day of School by Kathryn Heling

Aalfred and Aalbert by Morag Hood

I Can Only Draw Worms by Will Mabbitt

I Am a Tiger by Karl Newson

Mr. Nogginbody Gets a Hammer by David Shannon

Over the Moon by Rachel Vail

There Was an Old Martian Who Swallowed the Moon by Jennifer Ward