As part of Literacy Week planning and our ongoing efforts to identify and meet the needs of our students and staff, I have conducted collection evaluations at different points throughout the year. The aim is to identify what our students and staff want and need, what is circulating, and what needs are not being met. While Destiny provides some good statistical information, it is not perfect, and I have combined a few different measures as well as conducting informal conversations and observations to determine where we need to improve. In particular, I have examined our fiction collection, which has been arranged by genres to encourage browsing and improve circulation. Students have expressed that they like the arrangement, and circulation numbers have improved over previous years. Currently, we are trying to determine which areas of the fiction collection need to be strengthened to suit our students' needs.

Based on an examination of checkouts by genre and an evaluation of the fiction collection, I have gathered the following data. The first chart shows the representation of each genre in our fiction collection. About a quarter of our fiction is realistic, followed by historical (14.6%) and sci-fi/fantasy (11.0%) and graphic novels (10.6%). The other genres make up less than 10% each. The second pie chart depicts the breakdown by genre of our fiction checkouts this school year. Realistic fiction again has the largest percentage (21.8%), followed by sci-fi/fantasy (17.1%). However, there are some substantial imbalances between the two charts. Specifically, historical fiction circulates at a much lower rate than its representation in the collection would indicate. Conversely, romance and thrillers circulate at a much higher rate (both nearly double) than their collection percentages. This discrepancy matches what our Library Media Studies students have discovered in their surveys of the student body. Most students have indicated they enjoy thrillers, romance novels, or both. This finding is also supported by the final chart, which shows the percentage of unique titles checked out by genre. The thriller section is the only one that has had each title checked out at least once this year, with both sci-fi/fantasy and romance reaching over 75% as well. Again, historical fiction lags behind, with only 17.5% of its titles circulating. These findings will help us as we adjust our collection management plan and make budgeting decisions for next year.

Digging into these numbers and examining the way our collection circulates has been invaluable in understanding our students and their needs. Informal conversations with students and filling the requests from our personal book shopper form have also helped me to identify weaknesses in our collection. For example, the sports section seems like it circulates at an appropriate rate, as it makes up 2.7% of the collection and 3.1% of the fiction circulation. However, the section is tiny, and over 100 students (40%) who filled out the personal shopper form indicated that they like sports books. Going through the process of collection evaluation can be tedious, but it is also crucial to the health and utility of the library.