Date Approved

5-14-2004

Embargo Period

4-25-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in School and Public Librarianship

Department

Special Educational Services/Instruction

College

College of Education

Advisor

Shontz, Marilyn

Subject(s)

Public libraries--New Jersey; Young adults' libraries--New Jersey

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Abstract

In 1995 the National Center for Educational Statistics, conducted a survey on young adult librarianship entitled, Services and Resources for Children and Young Adults in Public Libraries. The survey showed that while 23% of the patrons that used public libraries were YAs, ages 12-17, they lacked librarians, services, resources and areas designed specifically for their age group. The researcher conducted a 2004 survey based on the NCES 1995 study to compare results to see if there were any improvements.The researcher e-mailed 84 descriptive surveys to public library members of the SJRLC and NJYAC, the responses totaled 38, or 45%. The results confirmed that there were minimal changes in the amount of YA resources, services and librarians from the 1995 study. The major differences between the 1995 and 2004 studies were the rise in the availability of PCs, which jumped from 30% (1995) to 79% (2004), the absence of libraries that conducted community outreach and in-house programming. Another difference was the perceived barriers to YA use. Respondents switched from internal problems (1995) such as insufficient staff to external reasons (2004) such as lack of knowledge of YA services.

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