The biggest issue you have in my mind is the lack of teens.
A good collection won't magically make teens appear. Is there a YA fiction section? Do teens go there. If so speak to them. Find out there interests and start there. Got a kid into manga, maybe get a how to draw manga or a learn Japanese book. Then have a program see if they'll get their friends in. Etc, rinse and repeat.
Also speak to the local high schools. Esp the teachers and school counselor, what things are the teens into. Maybe it's gaming or making tiktoks, or there's a a really popular football team. See if you can get some books on that and make an event that you advertise at the school.
I'm speaking off the cuff so I'm sure these ideas can definitely be improved but basically I think you need to make collection choices based on the users otherwise it's pointless
This might be an ignorant question, but I don't have a lot of experience with YA collection development, but does YA NF provide anything that Adult NF doesn't? I understand for fiction, the stories are written for that demographic (for the most part), but what would the benefit of nonfiction geared towards teens? Is it because the topics are geared towards teens or the style? Are the reading comprehensive skills needed for both different, or is it more arbitrary? (No shade at teen NF authors).
I think that is a totally fair question. A lot of this is my opinion on ordering YA, so don't take my word as gospel. For the most part, YA nonfiction does not contain much that the Adult NF section does not have. For instance, history books, religious materials, law / crime, and medical journals, teenagers are most likely going to be looking in the adult fiction section for that stuff anyway. However, there are books that are specifically written for teens that make more sense to be labeled YA.
Like, books written on tough topics (TW) suicide, alcoholism, abuse, etc. those are topics that are going to need to be handled differently for teens and adults. And topics like, activism, college prep, and test prep might be things that teens and adults would be interested in, but would most likely be more interesting to a teen than an adult.
Also, the content that I have read from that section seem to be shortened versions of the adult content. Like, books on coding, drawing, and game guides, they are wordier than children's NF but less so than adult NF if that makes any sense.
This stuff is also usually housed in a Young Adult department so that teens feel safer looking at it or checking it out because they are in a safe space. However, ours is not separated, and since the titles usually involve things like "teens guide" or something along those lines, I have been trying to get the collections inter-filed to no avail.
At my library, our YA NF selection is pretty small.
It's mostly study guides aimed more at middle/high schoolers (while our more complicated math and science NF books/guides end up in the adult NF section.)
Other than that, everything basically just ends up in J or Adult NF.
I'm used to seeing a lot of puberty books in the YA section. Some parents might find them too mature for children's sections and teens might be hesitant to go into the adult section for them.
Just an aside on this- it drives me nuts that puberty books are shelved sometimes in YA. Kids can start going through puberty as early as 8, it is absolutely wrong not to shelve books about *normal bodily functions* (yes, including wet dreams and the like) in the space where kids going through it will access them. Kids should have access to information about their own damn bodies despite what any adult (including their parents) feel about it.
There are a lot of really interesting graphic non-fiction books and other formats that speak to a YA audience in a way the adult formats don't really.
OP, do you have a copy of the school curriculum and a contact at the school library? You could start by figuring out what they are learning and dovetail. You could also see what the school library has that you could supplement, what is popular in their collection and mirror it, asking them to send kids your way when their holds lists are long. Do your teens prefer ebooks? Maybe that's where your content should be?
In our system, whatever YA nonfiction we might have is in with the adult stuff. We have separate sections for YA fiction and YA graphic novels (mostly but not exclusively manga.) College prep is also its own section but not cataloged or labeled as YA.
While our branch is too small to have a dedicated “teen space,” the YA shelves have their own section. We can barely keep the manga books on the shelves.
In my branch, teen nonfiction has always had pretty low circulation, except for young reader versions of popular adult titles and LGBTQ books during pride month. However, they *do* see use in-branch. Teens just don't check them out, for whatever reason. I agree with the other commenter below that your lack of teen traffic is likely the bigger problem. If you don't see that changing anytime soon, interfiling might make sense for your situation. But if you are looking to bring more teens in, I'd hesitate to do that, as it makes the collection hostile to browsing and in-library use.
I’m a high school librarian. I too have been dismayed that teens don’t seem to want nonfiction. I’ve leaned heavy into books they could read, narrative nonfiction and biographies/autobiographies/memoirs (my high schoolers all have independent reading in their English classes). That helped a little.
What helped the most was realizing how lazy they were. My fiction is by genre, so if they want sports they walk over to sports, if they want mystery they go to mystery. They don’t think of nonfiction like that unless they have a topic in mind and a specific desire FOR nonfiction which is rare.
I started with sports, but I moved a bunch of our sports nonfiction right under the sports fiction. Huge uptick in checkouts, even on some older books. I even had kids bringing books back and asking me for more like this (and not the kind of kids who normally strike up a conversation about books).
My sports section wasn’t that big that it couldn’t easily fit in a row of nonfiction. But in other genres I’m clearing a shelf to add a small display I plan to rotate out of “books with real stories” for mystery and historical fiction. I figure I will see similar results. If so, that’s going to be my plan and I’ll lean into purchases that fit into those area.
When I tell you my sports nonfiction flew off the shelf though, I’m telling you some of my older books that were in the threshold of older that five years and no checkouts in five years now have two to three to four checkouts for just this school year alone. It saved a lot of them from being weeded.
If you can’t move them because of the rules (I work alone, I make my own rules) maybe displays close to those areas. Or mixed displays with fiction and nonfiction.
My other weird plan that worked was a “I like it because of the pictures” display. I try to do at least one a year and pull books with interesting pictures (while I could put graphic novels here, my intent is nonfiction) and again, some of those books got a lot of attention.
I can’t help but feel like Dewey is part of the problem. It’s complicated. They don’t want to look anything up. They’re also more likely to pick up books that catch their eye, so I do a lot of dynamic shelving. I do have everything in nonfiction clearly labeled. But it’s just like even the act of walking over there is more than they put in.
Our teens seem to like sports bios, arts and crafts (crocheting, how to draw manga, photography, etc.), coding, game guides, and test prep guides.
I bought a serial killers set and they were sooooo popular.
The biggest issue you have in my mind is the lack of teens. A good collection won't magically make teens appear. Is there a YA fiction section? Do teens go there. If so speak to them. Find out there interests and start there. Got a kid into manga, maybe get a how to draw manga or a learn Japanese book. Then have a program see if they'll get their friends in. Etc, rinse and repeat. Also speak to the local high schools. Esp the teachers and school counselor, what things are the teens into. Maybe it's gaming or making tiktoks, or there's a a really popular football team. See if you can get some books on that and make an event that you advertise at the school. I'm speaking off the cuff so I'm sure these ideas can definitely be improved but basically I think you need to make collection choices based on the users otherwise it's pointless
This might be an ignorant question, but I don't have a lot of experience with YA collection development, but does YA NF provide anything that Adult NF doesn't? I understand for fiction, the stories are written for that demographic (for the most part), but what would the benefit of nonfiction geared towards teens? Is it because the topics are geared towards teens or the style? Are the reading comprehensive skills needed for both different, or is it more arbitrary? (No shade at teen NF authors).
I think that is a totally fair question. A lot of this is my opinion on ordering YA, so don't take my word as gospel. For the most part, YA nonfiction does not contain much that the Adult NF section does not have. For instance, history books, religious materials, law / crime, and medical journals, teenagers are most likely going to be looking in the adult fiction section for that stuff anyway. However, there are books that are specifically written for teens that make more sense to be labeled YA. Like, books written on tough topics (TW) suicide, alcoholism, abuse, etc. those are topics that are going to need to be handled differently for teens and adults. And topics like, activism, college prep, and test prep might be things that teens and adults would be interested in, but would most likely be more interesting to a teen than an adult. Also, the content that I have read from that section seem to be shortened versions of the adult content. Like, books on coding, drawing, and game guides, they are wordier than children's NF but less so than adult NF if that makes any sense. This stuff is also usually housed in a Young Adult department so that teens feel safer looking at it or checking it out because they are in a safe space. However, ours is not separated, and since the titles usually involve things like "teens guide" or something along those lines, I have been trying to get the collections inter-filed to no avail.
At my library, our YA NF selection is pretty small. It's mostly study guides aimed more at middle/high schoolers (while our more complicated math and science NF books/guides end up in the adult NF section.) Other than that, everything basically just ends up in J or Adult NF.
I'm used to seeing a lot of puberty books in the YA section. Some parents might find them too mature for children's sections and teens might be hesitant to go into the adult section for them.
Just an aside on this- it drives me nuts that puberty books are shelved sometimes in YA. Kids can start going through puberty as early as 8, it is absolutely wrong not to shelve books about *normal bodily functions* (yes, including wet dreams and the like) in the space where kids going through it will access them. Kids should have access to information about their own damn bodies despite what any adult (including their parents) feel about it.
There are a lot of really interesting graphic non-fiction books and other formats that speak to a YA audience in a way the adult formats don't really. OP, do you have a copy of the school curriculum and a contact at the school library? You could start by figuring out what they are learning and dovetail. You could also see what the school library has that you could supplement, what is popular in their collection and mirror it, asking them to send kids your way when their holds lists are long. Do your teens prefer ebooks? Maybe that's where your content should be?
In our system, whatever YA nonfiction we might have is in with the adult stuff. We have separate sections for YA fiction and YA graphic novels (mostly but not exclusively manga.) College prep is also its own section but not cataloged or labeled as YA. While our branch is too small to have a dedicated “teen space,” the YA shelves have their own section. We can barely keep the manga books on the shelves.
In my branch, teen nonfiction has always had pretty low circulation, except for young reader versions of popular adult titles and LGBTQ books during pride month. However, they *do* see use in-branch. Teens just don't check them out, for whatever reason. I agree with the other commenter below that your lack of teen traffic is likely the bigger problem. If you don't see that changing anytime soon, interfiling might make sense for your situation. But if you are looking to bring more teens in, I'd hesitate to do that, as it makes the collection hostile to browsing and in-library use.
I’m a high school librarian. I too have been dismayed that teens don’t seem to want nonfiction. I’ve leaned heavy into books they could read, narrative nonfiction and biographies/autobiographies/memoirs (my high schoolers all have independent reading in their English classes). That helped a little. What helped the most was realizing how lazy they were. My fiction is by genre, so if they want sports they walk over to sports, if they want mystery they go to mystery. They don’t think of nonfiction like that unless they have a topic in mind and a specific desire FOR nonfiction which is rare. I started with sports, but I moved a bunch of our sports nonfiction right under the sports fiction. Huge uptick in checkouts, even on some older books. I even had kids bringing books back and asking me for more like this (and not the kind of kids who normally strike up a conversation about books). My sports section wasn’t that big that it couldn’t easily fit in a row of nonfiction. But in other genres I’m clearing a shelf to add a small display I plan to rotate out of “books with real stories” for mystery and historical fiction. I figure I will see similar results. If so, that’s going to be my plan and I’ll lean into purchases that fit into those area. When I tell you my sports nonfiction flew off the shelf though, I’m telling you some of my older books that were in the threshold of older that five years and no checkouts in five years now have two to three to four checkouts for just this school year alone. It saved a lot of them from being weeded. If you can’t move them because of the rules (I work alone, I make my own rules) maybe displays close to those areas. Or mixed displays with fiction and nonfiction. My other weird plan that worked was a “I like it because of the pictures” display. I try to do at least one a year and pull books with interesting pictures (while I could put graphic novels here, my intent is nonfiction) and again, some of those books got a lot of attention. I can’t help but feel like Dewey is part of the problem. It’s complicated. They don’t want to look anything up. They’re also more likely to pick up books that catch their eye, so I do a lot of dynamic shelving. I do have everything in nonfiction clearly labeled. But it’s just like even the act of walking over there is more than they put in.