SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

November 1, 2017 by Karen Jensen, MLS

Doing a YA Collection Diversity Audit: Understanding Your Local Community (Part 1)

November 1, 2017 by Karen Jensen, MLS   8 comments

Tomorrow as part of the Library Journal/School Library Journal training on diversity Diversity and Cultural Competency Training: Collections & RA (which you should do), I will be doing a presentation on doing a diversity audit. I will outline what a diversity audit is, how to do one, and what I learned doing mine. I will be sharing parts of that presentation with you here tomorrow.

As part of doing a diversity audit, I tried to develop an understanding of what a diverse/inclusive book collection might look like: I tried to develop target goals. This task was harder to conceptualize than I imagined; we all talk about the need for diverse YA collections but there isn’t a lot of discussion about what, exactly, that should look like in concrete terms. So as part of my research process I decided to do some community needs and assessment research. Who are the teens I’m serving is a foundational question. I wanted to know who my teens were in concrete terms so that I could make sure that every teen in my community who walked into my library could find a book that represented them. If part of building good collections is windows and mirrors, then I wanted to make sure that I had some solid information for the mirrors part.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

communityprofile3

We can all tell you, informally and anecdotally, a lot about the local communities we serve. But I wanted to take the deep dive into facts and figures to make sure what I thought I knew about the local community I served was in fact a realistic picture of that very community. So I did research, and a lot of it. And then I put it all together in a notebook (because you know I love me some notebooks) that I could consult and update and refer back to time and time again.

The information I looked for was curated into a table of contents that looks like this:

communityprofile2

1. Basic Demographics

Comprehensive Population Profile

Political Leanings

Religious Affiliation

2. Housing Information – including owning vs. renting, single vs. multiple family dwellings, etc.

3. Overall Economy – including incomes and unemployment

4. Education

5. Entertainment and Recreation – which outlines local resources that are good for networking

6. The State of Our Youth – here I looked specifically at the youth in my local community, including things like foster care, mental health, CPS stats and more

7. Crime Statistics

8. Overall Health

9. Physical Environment

Breakdown of the County

Key Community Facilities and Resources

10. Environmental Issues

11. Transportation – this includes a look at things like vehicle ownership, average lengths of commutes, and more

12. Community Strengths

13. Community Needs/Challenges

14. Additional Resources

communityprofile1

In the Additional Resources category I printed off and curated a large volume of the same types of studies from other area agencies. For example, the health department had a pretty thorough investigation into these same types of questions and it was an invaluable resource, so I printed it off and put it in my notebook. The county itself has a county profile online. The Ohio Department of Youth Services had a statistical report of juvenile crime, so in it went. Other information included the basic U.S. Census data profile and the county sheriff’s office safety statistics.

I want to call special attention to the Knox County United Way Community Assessment because it was an incredibly useful tool and it provided a lot of the organization for my own outline.

All together, this information helped me to develop a more complete picture of the teens that I am serving at my library. Now instead of telling you anecdotally that I serve a primarily white community, I can tell you that I serve a community that is 96.7% white. Instead of telling you that a lot of my teens are economically challenged, I can tell you that 57.5% qualify for free and reduced lunch.

So this was the first part of really diving into the diversity audit, having a really comprehensive understanding of the local community in which I am serving. The next part is developing a better understanding of my collection to make sure I’m not just providing mirrors, but windows and doors and access to a richer, more realistic, more inclusive world view. Tomorrow, I will share with you the rest of my process.

About Windows and Mirrors

Windows and Mirrors: Why We Need Diverse Books

FAQ | We Need Diverse Books

Building on Windows and Mirrors – Children’s Literature Assembly

Complete YA Collection Diversity Audit Series

Doing a YA Collection Diversity Audit: Understanding Your Local Community (Part 1)

Doing a YA Collection Diversity Audit: The How To (Part 2)

Doing a YA Collection Diversity Audit: Resources and Sources (Part 3)

Diversity Audit Outline 2017 with Sources

Filed under: Professional Development

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
Community AssessmentCommunity NeedsCommunity Profile

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

May 2022

Take 5: Link Roundup for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and the Month of May (2022)

by Karen Jensen, MLS

July 2021

My Top 10 Posts, a Celebration of 10 years by Karen Jensen

by Karen Jensen, MLS

November 2020

Take 5: Resources You Should Know

by Karen Jensen, MLS

July 2020

A Great Big List of MG and YA Collection Development Resources

by Karen Jensen, MLS

June 2020

What if paying library staff and teachers to read IS part of the anti-racist work we could, and should, be doing?

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Shark Week and Earl Grey Tea: Bob Shea and Brian Won on The Yarn Podcast

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Have You Seen the Darkness? A Richard Fairgray, Black Sand Beach Interview

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, vol. 1 | Review

by Renee Scott

Heavy Medal

Mock Newbery Update – Our List of First Half Suggestions

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Wild Mustangs Made Me a Writer, a guest post by author Jennifer Adam

by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Shark Week, Vanilla Ice Cream, and the Honda CRV: Bob Shea and Brian Won Team Up for ADURABLE

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Board Book Evolution: No Longer 'Just for Babies'

8 YA BookTubers To Watch Right Now

Duke MDs’ Prescription for Schools? Masks, with Enforcement, and Psychological Support for Teachers, Students.

37 Kidlit and YA Titles in Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

8 Picture Books to Help Students Come Back to School

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. 3 Powerful Library Activities for the New School Year says:
    July 13, 2018 at 9:00 am

    […] to their ideas for expanding the audit next time. And Karen Jensen’s robust work with her YA collection diversity audit includes a defense of census data on which to base the audit, consideration of how to present the […]

  2. Starting A Diversity Audit – The Unschooled Librarian says:
    November 14, 2018 at 1:45 pm

    […] that is important to the collection and it’s audience. I highly recommend you check out Karen Jensen’s work on Teen Librarian Toolbox to think through all of the facets of diversity that may matter to […]

  3. Curated resources on diversity, inclusion, accessibility and equity for libraries – Open Pages says:
    November 19, 2018 at 2:32 am

    […] Part 1: Understanding your local community […]

  4. Ottaquechee's Diversity Detectives in: Innovation: Education says:
    May 19, 2019 at 10:27 am

    […] Doing a YA Collection Diversity Audit: Understanding Your Local Community (School Library Journal) […]

  5. Diversity Audits | OYAN - Oregon Young Adult Network says:
    June 14, 2019 at 3:49 pm

    […] you want more detailed information on diversity audits, you might read the Complete YA Collection Diversity Audit series by Karen Jensen on the School Library Journal […]

  6. 10 ways to diversify – Open Pages says:
    August 17, 2019 at 10:39 pm

    […] Part 1: Understanding your local community […]

  7. My Experiences Doing a Diversity Audit – Tales from the Nerdy says:
    September 27, 2019 at 5:30 pm

    […] for many years (side note: I’ve been a guest contributor a time or two), so when I saw this post on doing a diversity audit, I was […]

  8. Diversity- Article review – Serving Children and Young Adults in Libraries says:
    May 27, 2020 at 8:10 pm

    […] Jensen, K. (2017b, November 1).  Doing a YA Collection Diversity Audit: Understanding Your Local Community (Part 1). Retrieved from https://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2017/11/doing-a-diversity-audit-understanding-your-local-communi… […]

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2022


COPYRIGHT © 2022