The DYS Core Collection

This is a guest blog post by Teen Outreach Librarian Maty Cropley.

In early 2022, the Boston Public Library received American Rescue Plan Act funds, distributed by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, for use in funding library services for people who are incarcerated or youth in the juvenile justice system. These funds have been appropriated to support the expansion of a 'core collection' for use in working with youth at Department of Youth Services (DYS). Core collections are collections of books that serve the specific needs and requirements of a library outreach partner.

A memorandum of understanding between DYS and Boston Public Library Youth Services requires that all books brought into the two Metro facilities be in paperback, and that books fulfill the recreational and intellectual needs of these teens. With this in mind, teen services librarians at BPL founded the original 'core collection' of books to respond directly to the interests of and specific requests from the youth at DYS, as well as addressing the specific requirements for books and other materials that may not be met by regular library circulating collections.

The DYS Core Collection is for exclusive use by library staff working with the youth at DYS facilities. Selections for the collection are made based on new and previous requests by youth, youth responses to surveys, and topical or genre interests vocalized by teens during library visits. New books are labeled and arranged by genre or format and then author's last name or book title. Recently, the collection was moved into a new, dedicated space off at the Central Library. Library staff who choose to work with DYS can browse the collection via an online library catalog hosted on Tiny Cat, and make electronic requests to the teen outreach librarian for books for their visit date.

The DYS Core Collection of paperbacks has been greatly expanded with new grants and private funding. Youth at DYS have access to an expanded selection of books that they are interested in or can request, in the required paperback format. This allows library outreach librarians to respond quickly to teen book requests by having relevant books in the required format on hand, and have more agility in acquiring a requested book. The collection now has over 2500 paperback books in the collection, including graphic novels, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and essay collections, and a collection of World Language titles.