Children's Collection Development Policy: Collection Development

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
Subject: CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Program Description

Courses in Children's Literature and Young Adult Fiction are taught in the English Dept. but are required in the core curriculum for Elementary Education. English 3545 is a required course for Elementary Education majors with English specialists and English 3305 is required for all Elementary Education majors. The collection is a laboratory collection for use by the Elementary Education students.

Description of Existing Collection
NCIP Code: 2b

The DEWEY call numbers are: 000-999, B (Biography), E (Easy), F (Fiction); LC call numbers include: NC965, PN1009, Z1037-1039. The collection has been built up over time and includes the best classics in children's literature. When checking the collection against lists of best books, 60% were located. The titles not located have been ordered if they are in print. The collection suffers from heavy use both by the UTEP students and by children of library users who pull the materials off the shelves. Faculty members involved with teaching children's literature have complained that many titles have been lost from the collection. A project to inventory and reorder all the missing materials has been completed. Printed Reference titles include: Children's Literature Review, Something About the Author, Something About the Author - Autobiography Series, Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Children's Authors and Illustrators, the Childrens Catalog, Middle and Junior High School Library Catalog, and Illustrators of Children's Books. A search in the online catalog under children's literature retrieves over 800 titles about children's literature. Approximately 140 of the titles have imprint dates since 1990. The collection is very current and has excellent research tools. Books on illustration of children's literature as an art form are treated in the NC965 number.

Current Collecting Intensity
NCIP Code: 2b

The faculty continue to select titles from the many lists of outstanding children's books such as the ALA/YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, ALA's Notable Children's Books, the Kate Greenaway Medal list, the CLASP Americas Children's and Young Adult Book Award/Commended List, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, the Coretta Scott King Award books, the Caldecott Medal and Honor Books, and the Newberry Medal and Honor Books. Because of the emphasis on border and Latino cultures, selectors check bibliographies of Latino titles judged to be outstanding. Selectors also look for materials treating multicultural diversity. Most of the graduates from the Elementary Education program become teachers in the El Paso area where the majority of the children are of Hispanic background. Elementary Education teachers need to know of Latino or ethnic works for use in the classrooms. The Elementary Education core curriculum is being revised to include children's literature for all Elementary Education majors regardless of their specializations. This change in the core requirement will significantly increase the number of students taking the courses and greatly affect the demand on the collection.

                              Last updated:   June 11, 2015