(00:00-01:40)

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Five minutes in and I hope most of the people who wanted to attend are here.
So first, I'll talk a little bit about the Bulletin and the Center for Children's Books. If you don't know us or only
know a little bit about us. We are sort of two entities. I am the editor of the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 
and that is a review journal. We put out 11 issues a year. We review books anywhere from books that are for one year olds to books that are to 18 year olds, 
all genres, all formats. We've been doing that for quite a long time, we had our 75th anniversary last year, which was exciting.
And we are so we are part of the Center for Children's Books. And that is a research center, and that is headed up by Sara Schwebel, the director.
They put on a lot of really good events like this. So I would advise you to go and check out their website if you have a chance.
If you want to attend more sort of professional things like this. I know that they also have recordings of previous sessions.
Last week we did a session on sensitivity readers. We had 3 sensitivity readers come in and talk about that.
And then, 2 weeks ago, we talked to reviewers from the Bulletin.

Today. we wanted to talk to professional librarians who are in field and who are working to do collection development.
So I'm going to, sort of go around to everybody and let them introduce themselves, and then we'll have I will have some questions that we can walk through, 
and then at the end of that we can do some Q&A. Ariana, I will start with you. 

(01:40-03:51)

Ariana Hussain:
Hi I'm Ariana Hussain. I am a lower school teacher librarian at the Blake School in the Minneapolis area.
So I predominantly work with pre-K through 5 students, but you know work with a team of librarians, so we can do some selection together in the middle school 
and the upper school as well. I don't know how much more I should introduce about myself, but my bio is in the the summary, I think, so if you want to know a little bit more. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Yeah, we do have that. 

Ariana Hussain: 
Then, I will leave it there.

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Okay and then, Aaren, do you wanna introduce yourself? 

Aaren Tucker: 
Yeah, So I am the young adult/adult librarian at Moorpark City Library, in Moorpark, California.
So most of what I do is young adult services, but I do also a little bit of adult services. And it's a very small kind of suburban community.
And I forgot what I was gonna say, sorry. It is a very small suburban community.
And so we don't have a lot of staff here. So I'm kind of like the head of the young adult department. So I do all of the jobs at the library. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Jack of all trades.

Aaren Tucker: 
Exactly. 

Kate Quealy Gainer: 
Anna, Do you want to introduce yourself?

Anna Hartmann.
Sure, I'm Anna Hartmann. I am the youth services manager at the Council Bluffs Library in Iowa.
We are a part of the Omaha Metro area so we're right on the border of Nebraska.
Our population is about 60,000 and in Iowa, we are hilariously considered an urban library. In the state of Iowa, with a population of 60,000.
We have about our largest minority group in Council Bluffs is Hispanic. We have about 10% Hispanic population. 
and I serve kids in this department from birth through sixth grade. So. 

(03:52-08:34)

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Okay. I think I'm gonna start off with sort of a a big question that you could each can answer. So collection development obviously has the practical side, like how you do it.
And then the conceptual side, like your principals beyond behind doing that. So, I was wondering if you could talk first about kind of how you go about it.
Kind of what tools do you use, and even just kind of walk us through the process from beginning to end, and then maybe talk about how your audience or your own principles sort 
of guide that process.
Aaren, I will start with you. 

Aaren Tucker: 
Okay. So I am in a little bit of a weird situation, because I work for Library Systems & Services.
If you don't know what that is. It's basically a private company that runs libraries.
So the way that LS&S works is that we have basically a collection management team that does the bulk of our purchasing for us.
So our budget basically the collection management team spends about 80% of my budget on new books, And then I spend 20% of my budget on older titles that I didn't get, 
on replacements, and addressing gaps in the collection, or patron requests, and that kind of thing.

So my process is probably different from a lot of other people because I don't buy new books.
So on a practical level, if I want something that's new I can talk to my selector on the team and say, "Hey, I want these books.
Please get them," and they will almost always do that. I've never had them say no yet for something I wanted. But then when it comes to when I'm purchasing books, 
so they're not ever going to be brand new ones. So I'm not really looking at like the Bulletin or School Library Journal, or any of those for like new books.
But one of the things that I do here is that we started a collection for aimed at pre-teens so middle school age.
And there isn't really a specific I guess set of criteria that you know that's the group that's kind of from middle grade into high school.
And so the stuff that they read can very, quite widely. So a lot of what I am doing when I'm adding things to that-- 
I call it the middle grade collection, but it's not the 4 to 7 publishers middle grade collection.
That's when I'm using reviews a lot. I use NoveList primarily, because it aggregates most reviews to it, and then I can look at what different people are saying about the book.
And do I think it would work in my middle grade collection, or you know, is that a children's book more or an older kids book.

On a conceptual level, I think, it very much depends on what I'm selecting for. So, for example, because I don't buy new books when I'm looking at my collection just my primary 
young adult collection not thinking about the the middle school group. I'm thinking about what gaps are currently in my collection.
For example, when I started here this area of Southern California that I live in is primarily it used to be Chumash land.
And so I think it's very important that we have books about not just about Chumash people, but Native Americans generally, and when I got here we had almost nothing.
So that's one thing that I've spent a lot of time doing in the collection is buying books for-- it's not necessarily that the demographic of people that I serve has a lot of 
Natives living here, as far as I know, we do not. It's primarily white and Hispanic in this area.
And but that's the people that used to live here and and so they should be represented in our collection.
So those are the kinds of things that I'm keeping in mind is making sure the collections is diverse in lots of different ways and looking at
how I can add books to the collection that weren't purchased for me when they maybe came out but that are important to have for a balanced, healthy collection.

(08:35-12:48)

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Alright, I wanna circle back to you in a minute. But I know Anna is having some tech difficulty so and I'm gonna let you go first.
Sort of talk about your process, and then your principles behind it.

Anna Hartmann: 
My work computer wants to do an automatic restart so I'm going to talk through this question and then I'm gonna restart and come back.
So for me, I probably do have a more traditional public library structure in purchasing.
So each department manager at my library is in charge of purchasing for their department.
So I do all of the purchasing for board books, beginning readers, graphic novels, picture books, chapter books, and middle grade.
We do have to do some-- the middle grade category is one that I kind of share with the YA librarian depending on kind of the age of the character.
That's a good line for us to differentiate on a book that might rank at grades 5 through 8. If the main character's younger, I'm gonna buy it; 
if the main character is older, she will, and that is kind of a a practical tip to make sure we don't duplicate too much stuff across our collections.

I use, you know, review journals to purchase. I use Baker and Taylor, is one of our vendors here, and they do new book release calendars.
So I utilize those especially to keep up with series fiction. The kids are just wild about series books, and typically, your review journals are are not going to always review 
subsequent books in a series, and so it can be a challenge sometimes to keep up with the newest InvestiGators, or whatever. 
I like Diverse BookFinder. That is a tool that I use pretty frequently. 
Right now, I have one of my staff members is working on some recommended book lists, and I have asked her to be really intentional about making sure that the characters in those books represent diverse populations.
So if she's, for example, she emailed me and said we're really low on diverse potty books. So for some reason, apparently, the publishing world thinks that only white kids need to learn to go potty, and that's not true.
So she let me know. I went to Diverse BookFinder, and did some hunting around, and found us a little bit more diverse selection of potty books.
So and I would say that from a more conceptual level, and values, and that sort of thing is something that you know I'm always trying to keep in mind with the collection 
is really showing a lot of representation, you know. I'm not in a super diverse community, but you know we all know windows and mirrors and all of that.
So it's important to show all types in our books. There's also the challenge of-- this is kind of a practical challenge of just the way I need to divide my budget because I am collecting for a huge range of ages 
and kind of trying to make sure that I'm purchasing a balance of you know
making sure I have-- I'm not totally over serving our chapter book readers, and under serving our picture book readers and that sort of thing. 

I'm always trying to keep an eye on the circulation trends here, because for example, it took a super long time for graphic novels to catch on in my community.
I would say, probably until Dog Man. Kids here just were not reading graphic novels and every publication I would get would be graphic novels, are the hot thing.
And I'd be like "no, not here," so I wasn't spending a ton of money on those until they did really start to catch on and now I do.
So I think that's all for now. 

(12:49-19:19) 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
And there's some questions-- I'll double back, but go restart that computer. 
Ariana, now you're at a school, so does your process differ a little bit? Do you have more restrictions, less restrictions?

Ariana Hussain: 
So I'll say that we hugely benefit from the the fact that we are an independent school, so a private school.
So we are subject to just different you know-- We don't have the same restrictions, as you would have in, you know, like a lot of public libraries are having across countries, 
school libraries, I mean. I have, you know, colleagues in our public school who are fighting so hard to keep books on the shelf, even when they are not allowed to add them into the curriculum.
So for us, you know, there are a lot of different factors. We have a a pre-K through K library chair.
We have our upper school librarian, our middle school librarian.
We are two lower school librarians and there's a lot you know that, we separate in terms of who's lens to use for different ages.
But you know we definitely benefit from not having the kind of challenges. We might on occasion, but we have a pretty strong you know policy, 
and it's pretty well iterated. 

We have a community that's committed to pluralism. That you know when we're looking at books we're looking at representation, and whether the representation is bad representation.
And for that reason there are some books that we just don't have in our collection, or that are in special collections where you know the upper school students or other students are is open to them.
But most of the time it's for critical media kind of studies. So I would say that's a hugely beneficial for me.
In that just don't face those kind of things and then in terms of how it's informed.
I think that mission statement that is a driving factor but that's you know why I choose to be here as well. I'm sorry I think I just lost my train thought.

But I do, I rely on journals. I rely on the lens that I have as a reviewer, and my experience with Hijabi Librarians and the Feminist Task Force, and the different kinds of questions and rubrics that we 
We used to like question, What is is the primary purpose or what other driving force?
Of course we have, curricular connections, and any sort of pedagogical books that we need to have
bt in general we collect widely when it comes to our representation. We are very deliberate about that and what we have.

I would say that our budget probably with the whole school for their libraries anywhere between maybe 40 and $50,000 a year, including all of the
digital resources and databases that we need to subscribe to. But Minnesota is is wonderful. I mean, (inaudible, 16:02) has a lot of access to electronic resources.
But in general, yeah, we rely on our own expertise, journals our vendors, you know and see what's kind of coming out, and then do more.
research on specific titles as needed. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Now, do you get any feedback from students and teachers. Requests that they might want. How do you handle that or is it just not something that they usually do? 

Ariana Hussain: 
Oh, definitely, you know, I trust in my colleagues, and what they want to use in their curriculum.
As well, or they ask our expertise. You know we have a director of Community Engagement and Equity.
I think transpose--I think it's Office of Equity and Community Engagement.
We have a curriculum specialist who really looks at our intercultural competencies, and whether what we're bringing to the classroom, you know.
And then they colleagues also Come to us it's, Hey, what do you want?
Do you have any diverse potty books
What you know we don't, because pre-K we're hoping that...
But we do you know it's I'm doing the unit on families, or I'm doing a unit on identity.
You know it's what are some of the newer books that we have, because these are the ones that we've been using in the previous years, and they need refreshing that kind of thing. 
And students they always tell me it's yes, they want Dog Man and that's fine yes, so you know.
But in and sometimes, they'll ask me for things that we don't have anymore like we don't, have the the Little House books you know it's why and we you know and we talk a little bit
about that, and maybe I give them Birchbark House instead, and then ask if you really want to you know you can. You can utilize or you can check out from the public library instead.
But know that this is the reason why you know. yeah. And so we we have a lot of conversations about representation. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Yeah, that's really interesting that there is that sort of open communication, I imagine maybe in a school that's a little bit easier than but you know, that you're dealing with it.
But that's really interesting that there's sort of an immediate this is why we don't have it, but this is where you can go.

Ariana Hussain: 
Right. I mean. we you know just having kind of conversations with students about how representation is so important, a lens of Oh, how many of you can name a superhero that is Black that's
not Black Panther and that's not you know not Shuri. You know then they just stop after a while.
And then how many can you name that are just white men?
And that those kind of conversations lead to more, you know,
conversation about, Okay, well, what is my-- what do I read right? How diversely do I read? Is that important to me?
So it's really important to just respect the readers right, because I mean we're selectors but we're still adults.
So really, respecting that, students have agency, too. 

(19:20-23:23)

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Yeah. Aaren, I want to double back to you because you work with older titles, and I was wondering, how do you start. Does someone come to you and say we need these 
titles, or kind of what is the service of those kind of older titles?

Aaren Tucker: 
So not usually. I do get patron requests, but not that many. The the adults and children's library. and their patron request stacks are like 2 or 3 times the size of mine. 
So most of it is driven by me. And this is gonna sound weird, but a lot of it is driven by when I'm trying to do displays on a specific topic, and I'm looking up what titles would be good for this display.
We don't have that one maybe I should buy it, so that's a lot of what I'm doing.
Is looking at lists and titles that fit a certain niche that I want to do.
I also now do a YA subscription "subscription" book box and those have a theme.
So that's adding to my purchasing as well of "Oh, I need more books like this, because I don't have enough books for the boxes."
That's not exactly-- that's not everything because if I'm ordering for a display or a box by the time the book gets here that's in the past
but, I also what was, can you repeat the question. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Oh, just sort of when you're working with older titles with like I mean you already kind of answered the question about sort of serve a display, 
And then you were saying most of the time, was it novelist that you use, or was it?

Aaren Tucker: 
Yeah, I use NoveList. I also think when I'm looking older titles I know I mentioned before, but just addressing gaps in the collection, and what these certain things which is, I think, the when I'm doing a display that's 
usually how it comes up because it, you know, I think, for example, I mentioned that that we didn't have a lot of Native American but that was because I wanted to do a display for Native American heritage month, 
and I have a great display this year, because I bought a lot of books last year. So I do use NoveList just kind, of the main place that I go and I, because they just have all the the reviews right there.
So I can look at everything, and that's I think I but I use that more for I don't think I use NoveList as much for purchasing as I do for once I've purchased books, and I'm splitting my collection up into this 
one's gonna stay in YA and this one's gonna go into the middle school collection. That's when I'm going to NoveList because I want-- It sometimes you can't tell just looking at the book or reading the blurb who it's gonna 
what group it's gonna appeal to. And in particular, I think this is probably true most of the time, but I know, especially here, kids are reading up a lot.
So a book might have a 16 year old protagonist. But the teenagers the high school students they don't want to read that book, but the middle school students are usually quite interested.
And that depends, I think, on I guess I don't wanna say the content of the book. It's not exactly the content but maybe the style. or the just the tone of the book is, I think the teens are definitely 
looking for more mature titles and the middle school teens are they want to read exciting teen books, but maybe they're not quite ready for some of the content that are in a lot of YA books.
So that's oftentimes if a book has a 16 year old protagonist, but it's not doing well in the YA collection when I'm looking at my circ stats. 
The NoveList reviews or Bulletin reviews-- I look those up too-- will tell me Okay, Maybe this group, this book is better for this age, 
and I should try it in this part of my collection.

(23:24-27:41)

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Just so the people in the session NoveList is basically a search engine right where you narrow things down and then get a list of titles.
And then they come. When you look at those titles they have reviews

Aaren Tucker:
Yeah, it's great. It'll tell you all the sort of metadata that's available about a book. And it will tell you readlikes for books. I use it a lot for
reader's advisory as well. If you don't have access to NoveList, I feel sad for you.

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Yeah, it's nice we have it through the school.
I was wondering when it comes, because you were talking about older books.
I was wondering, when it comes to award winners, what how much does that take into account when it comes to your collection, cause I know sometimes there is.
the people are limited by budget, and how do you balance that sort of appeal and popularity?
And then sort of the books that are being kind of lauded for this is what children's literature is and I'm wondering how do you balance that in your collection?
I know sometimes for me. I'm I really like this book, but you know I just had one actually recently that I didn't end up reviewing because i
tfelt more like an adult book than it was you know a  teen book. So I'm wondering if there's any sort of consideration when you look at the awards and that kind of collection development part.

Aaren Tucker: 
For me it's very little actually because I am mostly looking at how the book fits into my collection, and sometimes award winners like I said.
you know I guess they're not if it's a brand new book. The my selectors don't know they're gonna be an award winner in the future, but I feel I don't I often have a lot
of those, unless they're really niche and in which case if they are really niche titles I'm not really thinking about, is this an award-winning title.
I'm thinking about is this title valuable to my collection for something else so I would say a lot of Oh, what is it?
I forgot the (inaudible, 25:30) the LGBTQ awards. A lot of those titles do get added to my collection, but it's not because they're an award-winning title 
it's because there may be more niche. My selector didn't purchase it for me when it came out.
And now I'm looking to add more LGBTQ titles to my collection, so I don't pay that much attention to award winners at all.
But maybe I should. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Ariana, How about you, because I know that can sometimes play into curriculum aspects?

Ariana Hussain:
Yeah, we do talk to-- since right now. we're doing our like, our mocked Caldecott.

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Right, yeah. 

Ariana Hussain:
Our mascot is bears, so it's a Beardecott. But, so we do keep some you know.
But we you know it's important to know that you know it's some of these are very old awards, and some of the the content and framing doesn't really hold up anymore.
And so, just to know that when we're looking at illustrations looking at art appreciation for like Caldecott.
But you know some of the some of the other older titles maybe we don't have them anymore and that's okay.
But to think about really as you know, when we look at the whole collections what is the canon like, right? 
We are looking at individual titles. but what is the cannon like and how do award winners kind of drive the cannon.
So it's like, if we're talking about like Stonewall and "Julian is a Mermaid," which maybe is not necessecarily--there is, I mean it's imaginative play there is implied queerness
right, but it's not necessarily queer, but in that time, since the book has been published right, there are a lot more books.
There's a lot more representation of quuer characters of color, so I think it's really important to think of it as awards are important.
They can be drivers right, and sometimes it's important to have them. But rather to think about what does it mean for the cannon of representation?
And what do you have as a collection so I guess that's my philosophy a little bit about awards. 

(27:42-32:00)

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
No yeah, and Sarah I think you make a good point about paying attention to awards that sort of are outside of you know what you're seeing, and the Caldecott because that can sort of
focus the like, you were saying, focus it to a very particular population, and then be able to bring that sort of representation into the collection.

Anna, you are back, and I have a very sort of practical question for you, because you had brought it up earlier.
You had mentioned that you look for the age of a character in a review.
What other sort of key items are you looking for a review, and as the editor of a review journal what else would you like to see that maybe we don't put into a review?

Anna Hartmann: 
I do find I mean the age of the character helpful. I find it helpful when race or ethnicity are pointed out.
Obviously, if there's an LGBTQ character, I want to know that. It's helpful to know readalikes. If a reviewer can say, oh, a reader who loved this series will also, love this one because that
way if I have a series that I know is super popular, then I know that this one might do well here too.
If it's a series that is also helpful. If you know at the point of review that there are going to be more which we don't always know but that's helpful too.

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
12:33:57 So, now does the collection development of that series sort of depend on the original circulation of the first book?
Do you sort of take into account like, Oh, this has done okay so I might get more. 

Anna Hartmann: 
So typically, I weed my collections on a schedule.
So every 6 months I get a list of anything that hasn't checked out in 2 years, which I'm not gonna withdraw everything that hasn't checked out in 2 years.
Don't worry, but I just do that so I can kind of see how things are doing. And if there's stuff that maybe I want to work on pushing, so it doesn't show up on a 3 year list.
So that is typically the point at which I will address whether or not I'm gonna add to series book, so if I have say like a 10 book series, and 5 of them haven't checked out in 2 years.
Well, I'm probably not gonna add book 11 to that maybe I could try to move the ones that are here and see if we can get it to be doing better.
So I kind of try to look at that overall as a series to decide whether or not I'm gonna add to it.

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Sara has an interesting question. Interested in hearing how you read review journals. Cover to cover? Looking for specific topics? Specific age groups?
I'm curious about this, too, you know are you sort of just flipping through. Do you kind of sit down and say I'm gonna go through these 3 journals, and then what names of the journals do you rely on. 
Anna, I'll go to you and then Ariana I think I'll go to you, cause I have a specific question for Aaren.

Anna Hartmann: 
so our library we rotate the journals around to all of the selectors.
I typically don't read anything cover to cover mostly because I always feel a lot of pressure to get it to the next person, so that they can get their stuff in a timely manner.
So I really do go through just looking for my specific age groups that I purchase for and then I don't really read the reviews that are outside of of my age range.
You wanna know what which ones I use?

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Yeah. sure.

Anna Hartmann:
Yours. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Okay, that's nice. 

Anna Hartmann:
I like School Library Journal, Booklist.
I typically will seek out Kirkus reviews.I always feel they do a really nice job with diversity reviewing.
And then I look at bestseller lists too, just to make sure I'm not missing something there.

(32:01-36:09)

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Ariana, can you talk a little bit about that?
And then I was also curious-- I completely lost my train of thought.
But you can answer Sara's question which is how you read review journals, I mean you said that you do use them, so is it cover to cover, specific age groups?
And then I will think of my question.

Ariana Hussain:
so I've reviewed for 3. So I you know it's I get a little bit of a reviewer bias there. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
But right yeah, I would. That's funny, because I was gonna ask Aaren, that too.
So yeah, feel free to talk about reviewer bias, too.

Ariana Hussain:
Well, I mean I review for Kirkus. I've reviewed for School Library Jounral and for Horn Book, and I think that they all have different you know philosophies.
I think School Library Journal is very beneficial for me, as your school librarian. You know the other reviewers are also librarians, right so and there are sometimes you know 
it's highlighted different pedagogical ties that are really important, and you know, Publishers Weekly that kind of thing. 
I definitely you know, I've used, Horn. but Horn, I think they publish books, if they are, if they feel that they're if there's a positive feeling about that particular book.
So I don't think they publish reviews for books that they didn't like or they had.

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Oh, yeah, no, I don't think that they do. 

Ariana Hussain:
And then for and for Kirkus you know it's we were given this lens of you know naming diversity right or naming identifiers right. so I mean I that definitely is helpful for me when 
I'm looking and seeing it's, Oh, is there no, this is a great book it's what you know like how representative is it? How intersectional is it?
And I mean I see Sarah's question in the box like yeah, definitely. It helps to look at Latinx in Kid Lit, and definitely Debbie Reese's reviews, as well, you know and of course, I'm one of the Hijabi Librarians.
So it's we or I will name it the APALA Rubric, and it was a really important to look at these kind of things because reviewers are not always from you know they're not
It's not even perfect you know, perfect for me. Sometimes it's I'm asked to review a book and oh, okay, well, maybe there's some representations though they're Iranian and 
they're not necessarily Muslim, so I don't know why I'm getting this book, you know so it's not always you know perfect hashtag and it's not always own voice.
It's not and you know, people who are cultural insiders are going to be able to see way more than I would, but at least it gives you a little bit more of contextual clues, or concerns Right?
So I think usually I do that side by side, you know kind of what does this say? And yes, it really helps to see well this book got, you know, 7 starred reviews, and for good reason, 
in terms of all these kind of elements about composition and whatnot, but what you know reviewers who are looking at it with a lens of you know identity lens say is really important,
just to know that you're going to have a book that you know is important to all readers, but then in particular to the people who are supposed to be representing. Yeah, that help?

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
No that was great and you shouted out some nice resources, so I will definitely be looking at those too. 
Aaren, if you can kind of answer that question how you read review journals, and I'm just gonna tag it on the end and Ariana maybe you can answer too.
After the reading strategy talk a little bit about how your experience as a reviewer might have changed how you read reviews and sort of your experiences as a librarian 
may change the way you write reviews. Aaren, I'm gonna go with you first if you can talk a little bit about the your actual day to day process of reading a journal, 
and kind of what that looks like. 

(36:10-38-19)

Aaren Tucker:
I don't read any journals, because my library doesn't pay for that, and they do have for like I mentioned the collection management team. They get journals but I don't get any.
So if I'm reading  reviews it's almost always on NoveList or it's in the Bulletin, which, thanks for sending me free copies of the Bulletin. 
So I'm definitely not reading any cover to cover and I'm not usually just browsing looking for titles. I am almost always looking at a specific book.
And then what are the reviews for that specific title?

I forgot. the second part of the question,

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
It's more out of sort of curiosity... has your experience as a reviewer affected your librarianship?
Or has your experience as a librarianship influenced that aspect of it?

Aaren Tucker:
Yeah, there was something else I wanted to say I can't remember what it was.
Well, I'll answer that, and hopefully it comes to me yeah I think that my I don't-- I'm not sure if I can split it apart that much.
Because I do think that when I write reviews I talk about the things that I want to know about a book.
But oh, boy, I have completely lost my train of thought. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
That's okay, we actually have a really we have a good question. We're giving some questions, and it is 1:45 isn't it?
Okay, So Stephen is asking about circ lists. Let me read through it. Oh, I did have a question about weeding, too, so circ lists for weeding and coming up the strategies to boost 
diverse books that may not be circulating, but you'd like to highlight. I guess I think he's asking what sort of programs do you do that? And then it looks like if you collaborate with other colleagues. 
Ariana, you can go ahead. I saw you nodding your head so I'm just gonna you know

(38:20-45:43)

Ariana Hussain: 
I think that's really important right. It's like you know, obviously I don't know I think also age bias right it's Oh, this is great and I have to remember that, if a book is from the year 2000.
It was over 20 years ago, right? Something that might feel contemporary to me is not necessarily contemporary? And then thinking about generations of students who come in?
This is how many generations, students have been in since this book has been published.

So I mean definitely when we think about for boosting diverse books. But also I want to think about framing you know I something that I've actually been thinking about pretty recently is the framework of Jewish representation, right?
Because you know it's in terms of publishing right people might say, it's not maybe Jewish books are not necessarily underrepresented.
But I think about okay, well, but what about you know the thinking about Jewish representation like 40 years ago?
Does that mean that people were able to really, How do I say I think more about sensibilities that are not necessarily
How much do you think about like Gentile sensbilities and how much has to be, you know it's something that's been coming up recently,
wth the what is the second book of the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, or the same author or whatnot? How much of that? What is the lens that's changed do you have to be
apologetic? Does there have to be the concept, of the good Gentile, right?
So I wonder how much codeswitching right is being done in these past books, and how much it's really important, especially given the level of anti-semitism that's going around the country,
around the world. It's like how important is it to make sure that when you know the lens that's being presented now it's really a true lens. I'm sure that's I see it now it's you know,
Yes, there's always this concept of yes, there's so many holocaust books, but people are not willing to codeswitch for you anymore.

They all say it was you know and the show was this right so it's,
I think that's really important to recognize who has a power right?
When what was the power like when these books were published, you know, even when we look it's, Okay, diverse books and this is book with a Black protagonist.
But I was like all these books that were publishing you know and highlighted in 98, or whatever they're all about slavery, and they still use slave. So I think that when we when we look at
books, you know you look at weeding right and we do want to make sure that there's a big range.
It's not just that single Muslim book. It's not that single Jewish book.

It's not a single book anymore.
You have to make sure your collection is a really widely represented, so that students I mean because I can still see it right.
There's still, a bias it's okay are you going to take this book, or you know like a funny book, right? it's I'm gonna pick up Potato Pants! which there's nothing wrong with
Potato Pants!, but if you're gonna pick this up over an Allen Say book. But then, for me I have to realize that Allen Say book was a good book for me when I was 8 years old, you know. 
so I just think and I'm like 40 now, so I think that yes, definitely, programming is important, right?
And trying to tie into curriculum, but then to recognize that you know some books there once again-- It's like that might have been this groundbreaking book. What is there now?
That is just as well done or relevant, or whatnot, or more contemporary for the students that we have now.
 
Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
yeah, that that's an interesting point because when we're reviewing.
And I have to think about assigning books,it's interesting, because, as you said, there's a lot of World War 2 and holocaust books.
But then it's really interesting to see oh, this is actually a new perspective. It's coming in as you were saying like it wasn't, written 30 years ago.
It has a different perspective. It probably is a little bit more nuanced to be completely honest. And so, then, okay, well then yeah it's definitely worth reviewing.
But at the same time I have to also keep in mind, Oh, is this book another trauma book, you know, is this trauma was sort of like, really kind of no I don't wanna say nuance behind trauma
because that sounds terrible, but you know, with no more reason than that actually. 

Ariana Hussain: 
And you know, like I, Susan Kusel recently who was was my mentor, but also wrote The Passover Guest, I think, talked about how widely used The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is
But I still think even for us it's I've asked. Everybody's like, Oh, well Number the Stars. I was like well, but Number the Stars was published what like the eighties early nineties is that right?
 
Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
I think it was the early nineties.

Ariana Hussain:
So to think about the fact that book I mean not that it's a bad book at all. But this is still told from a certain perspective. And how old is it?
How many years has it been? Why is it still upheld? Is this the only book you can teach and it's Okay, to teach about something as serious as the holocaust. 

Anna Hartmann: 
Can I add something here? So a thing that I have noticed because I used to be a teen librarian. I did that for 8 years 
and I've been in youth services for the last 5 years, and it's been very interesting to me to see how much more staying power children's books have than teen books and I think I've thought about it
a lot. I think it's because adults are so much more involved in book selection for children. And so an adult is here in the library and says, Oh, you should read 
Number the Stars because I loved that book when I was in fourth grade and so then I'm never weeding Number the Stars, because it never shows up on a weed list, because some parent is like it's such a great book 
but then I have to be extra aware to add newer titles that might deal with things in a better or different way.
So it's definitely sort of more top of mind there. We have a lot more--
We ran a diversity audit on our Easy Book Collection and our Support Services librarian and was like It's not great, and I was like well, that's because those grown-ups they
keep checking out those books so it is a real challenge to balance what you want your patrons to see versus what they will pick up without pushing, I guess. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Yeah, I mean I've certainly heard that. Even when I talk about children's books with anybody people will say, Oh, this is my favorite one, and it's you know it's always Where the Wild Things
Are. I'm like that's a great book but there's a lot more fun ones.
We have about 10 min. Does do people have more questions in the chat?

(45:44-48:21)

Aaren Tucker: 
Can I say something?

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
Yeah go for it. 

Aaren Tucker: 
I remembered what I wanted to say earlier.
Oh, and just to piggyback off what Anna just said that Yeah, that teen books are.
I have to weed things all the time that are my collection is very young in terms of publishing, because the older books just they stop.
So even a book that's 5 years old and that circed like 60 times in 3 years, and now it won't at all.
So but I remembered what I wanted to say earlier about the way that I use journals.
The other thing that I've noticed is that different journals are sort of more reliable for different things, and going back again to my middle school collection.
Most middle grade books are from ages 4 to 7 and there's a huge gap between a fourth grader and a seventh grader in terms of interest and maturity.
And what they want to read. So I think part of the reason that it's good to look at multiple journals is because you see different opinions.
And this is maybe my own advice, but I think the Bulletin is a lot more reliable when it comes to looking at the appropriate ages for a book than some of the other journals.
I think a lot of the other journals just slap the publisher recommendations on there and that's not that helpful to me. And then there's other things too, that I find, like Kirkus is kind of shady sometimes.
I don't know. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
They can be yeah. I don't mind. I like the fact actually that they will do. I don't wanna call it a negative review, but you know, I appreciate that they will take the time
things are worthy. 

Aaren Tucker:
I appreciate that, too. but I would never just look at Kirkus.
I would always look at another one to see what other people think, so I think that's valuable. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Yeah, that makes sense. you interrupted my train of thought, Aaren. 

Aaren Tucker:
I'm so sorry 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
That's okay. Well, I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about, and we touched on this earlier.
I think what I would really like to do is maybe get a collection of the resources, the sources that you use, and maybe send it out to the people who have participated, or even just put it on a slide at the end of it.
So it can be part of the presentation,. but sort of going off of not just the journals.
Obviously you look at-- Oh, here's my thought that's what I was going to when I'm not sure have many of you experienced challenges or sort of approached by various people to take a
book out of a collection? 

(48:21-55:49)

Anna Hartmann:
I have a good one.

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
I was gonna say I feel like Anna does.

Anna Hartmann: 
Well, I've only had one formal challenge in 13 years, and it was a a graphic novel. In YA, we have a procedure here.
We have a reconsideration committee on the Board of Trustees.
And I just had to go to them with my rationale, which I mean it was an award-winning book.
It was actually very easy, and we got done with the whole thing, and they were like, Yeah, of course, that will stay where you put it, 

But not too long ago. I, after the picture book Something Happened in this Town kind of made the rounds on right wing media and it's for anyone not familiar with it.
It is a police shooting depicts a police shooting of a Black person, and is very sensitively dealt with.
There's a lot of great information in the back matter about how to have these conversations with young children who might see things on the news, and this woman called me and wanted to know if we had it.
And I said we do and she gave me an ear full on the phone, and I explained to her how the reconsideration process works and the form she would have to fill out, etc., etc.
And she said, Well, I'm just gonna call the police and have them come get it, and I was okay that's not how it works, but give that a shot.
So it went nowhere, but it was my favorite that she thought the police would just come pull a book off our shelf because she didn't like it.
So, anyway. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Do you? I mean is so I know that most places have a formal process like this is what's gonna happen?
Do is, does that include reviews or awards, or anything like that?
Or is it more like a this depends on sort of the community we work with.

Anna Hartmann: 
So for us, our process is that the patron must read the book in its entirety.
They must fill out the reconsideration form. We will not fill it out on their behalf.
They have to do that themselves. Once they have done that, then it just becomes a process of the selector making the case to the board, and we can do that in whatever way we want.
When I had to do it. It was a 3 book series, and they were challenging the third book.
So I read all 3, so that I would get the full context of what they were complaining about.
And then I read reviews. I looked at award list, and I just took all of that to the board and said, why. Made my argument for it, basically 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Ariana, I know you said that your school is pretty supportive.
Have you experienced any sort of pushback or anything on a particular title?

Ariana Hussain: 
Not really. But we have tried to get ahead of things.
So similar to what Anna had said that you know we tell people it's like if they have a challenge that you know what is our mission to statement that we aim to support individual classroom pursuits,
that we're guided by the principles outlined in Freedom to Read and the Library Bill of Rights from ALA and that, you know we consider each one, each request, the library.
The book has to be read and viewed in its entirety.
If people disagree, they have to fill out the form. It's going to be reviewed by the divisional libraries, the chair and the divisional director, and then that it has to include consulting professional sources and
reviews. And then, you know, we think, we talk about weighing it against the merits of the school, curricular needs, library mission, and then other people who might be consulted.
So it is a big process and it's not necessarily to say that don't challenge anything, but that you know people need to consider what it really means to remove a book from the shelf and in Yeah, while they're in
the process of of consideration the book will remain on the shelf.

And you know that said You know we we definitely have weeded books, or remove them from general circulation.
You know ourselves when we think about representation and harm.
and does harm if the book does harm. so if that's if you know a parent brings that to us, it's you know what like look this book is saying this, and my family we
are Cherokee and it's totally inaccurate. Then and here are the reasons why right?
Then, you know we we'll consider that more so I mean.
But they still have to fill out the form.

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Sara has a question about kind of how do challenges differ from weeding?

Sara Schwebel: 
Or more so, whether patrons bring that up right, as they make challenges?

Anna Hartmann:
I don't know that the general patron in my experience really has a lot of awareness about the fact that we remove books from the library on a regular basis 

Kate Quealy-Gainer:
like weeding, or just in general?

Anna Hartmann:
Yeah, like weeding. I mean, I think you know there are the big news stories where people are like "Oh, my God, I saw books in a dumpster,"
but yeah I don't have patrons talk to me about that very frequently. 

Aaren Tucker: 
Same, I don't and I've never had a formal challenge either. So that's never come up, yet. 

Ariana Hussain: I mean I think, for us, there are a lot of questions about weeding just because you know I am a lower school
librarian because there's lots of nostalgia. Because you know, the parents hold the purses of you know, for selecting books for their younger children.
So sometimes it's "well, why don't you have this one," or "why you are you getting rid of these books?"
And sometimes it's because you know say look at the age it's a nonfiction book; There's no it's not accurate anymore.
And or you know there's better books now, so I mean generally, after having a conversation. It there's not much challenge on top of that. 
Sometimes,  it's just, Can I have it afterwards and sometimes if it's not a book that causes harm.
Yeah, they can do that. But if it is then we say no, you know it's we just don't, this is you know where we're going to take care of it. 

Kate Quealy-Gainer: 
Well, this was lovely. We are at one o'clock, and I know that a couple of you have to get back to work which is important-- out there doing doing the good work.
I might email you. All three of you to get some of your resources that you use and find some way to get them out to the people who came today maybe on the recording. 
But thank you very much. This is very much appreciated. It was very informative. And I will-- you'll probably get an email from me.