Hello, everyone! This is Marna Hostetler, Director of the David L. Rice Library, here to respond to our most recent suggestions:
Received March 10, 2014
1. Have more kids’ books. A lot of Education majors rely on Rice (Library).
2. Complete series of books you have already. It’s disappointing to start a series and not finish it.
First, thank you very much for your suggestions. We agree that more kids’ books would be a great resource, not only for our Teacher Education majors, but also for the Children’s Learning Center, the Summer Enrichment Camp, and the children of USI students, faculty, and staff. We purchase the titles that win the following awards each year, and fill in other titles when we can:
Boston Globe – Horn Book Award
Caldecott Medal
Caldecott Honor
Charlotte Zolotow Award – Winner
Charlotte Zolotow Award – Honor
Coretta Scott King Award – author & illustrator awards
Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award
Jane Addams Book Award
Jane Addams Book Honor
National Book Award: Young People’s Literature
New York Times Best Illustrated Books
Newbery Medal
Newbery Honor
Phoenix Award
Phoenix Honor
Pura Belpre Award – author & illustrator awards
Schneider Family Book Award
Theodor Seuss Geisel Award
However, as fun as it is to select children’s titles to add to our collection, our budget is limited and we have many other programs to support.
Your point on completing book series is a good one, and we do try to do that with shorter series of 10 titles or less. Ongoing series with many titles become difficult to maintain, and before purchasing another title within a series, we look at circulation counts for other titles from that series. If circulation counts are low, we may decide not to continue purchasing additional titles from that series. We have begun purchasing mass market best sellers, however, and some titles within series will certainly be on those lists.
Thanks again for taking the time to provide us with feedback on how we’re doing. Please write again if other ideas come to you.