Thanks to all who responded! As always, ya'll are
great!
I got an interest survey off of the ALA website
when reading about Teen Reading Week. Surely it's
still there. I'm at home, so I don't have a copy of
it handy. I think the web address is
http://www.ala.org, but I'm not sure. Hope this
helps.
I have used student surveys, often in conjunction with
English teachers
so
I can hit a balance of the student body. Sometimes the
teachers give
extra
credit to encourage participation! Although I don't
make it too formal,
I
usually ask for titles, favorite authors, favorite
genres, and the
titles
of the "Last Good Book I Read" for some trends. I have
even asked them
to
finish the line, "I don't check out books from the
media center because
. .
. " so I can find out what I'm missing in the
collection or in our
service.
I find that good readers always have suggestions, but
I also find out
what
we else we should be doing to bring in marginal
readers. I try to be
sure
and advertise the new books as student suggestions and
that develops
good
PR.
csoma@blueearth.k12.mn.us
Molly,
I did something like this about 4 years ago - I made
up a simple form where students simply listed their
favorite 3 books. I let them know that I was compiling
the list of the top 100 favorite books of our
students. We asked them to provide the author when
possible. The form was distributed through English
classes and forms were also available in the library.
Most, not all, English teachers cooperated. I
compiled the results and ended up with a list of the
"top 16" (the numbers between the 10th - 16th ranked
entries were only 1 a piece, then there was a 15 pt
difference between #16 & #17.), a top 100 and a list
of the 25 most popular authors. I was encouraged
because the list was very 'classic' heavy - 'To Kill a
Mockingbird' was the overwhelming favorite. Atlas
Shrugged was another top runner, and Charlotte's Web
:-) was also in the top group. Other entries varied
from Stephen King's books, Lurlene McDaniels, Kurt
Vonnegut, Dante, The Bible, Dune, Crutcher, Grisham,
etc... As you can guess - it was a very eclectic
list! The reward was in making a phamplet that listed
the winners that was distributed not only to the
students but also to area public libraries. In the
phamplet we starred* the ones that were in our
collection. We used the list to order books we didn't
have but should. Now I refer to the list when
students are looking for something good to read. It
offers 100 suggestions and hasn't failed me yet!
Good luck,
Narda
Narda LaClair
Library Assistant
Essex High School
Essex Jct., VT
nlaclair@adelphia.net
Yes, I have surveyed high school students about what
they would like to
have in the library. It worked pretty well and I got
some good
suggestions. the problem was I got a lot of
suggestions for magazines and
with the declining budget for magazines it wasn't
possible to fill those
requests so some of the students thought I wasn't
listening to them or
honoring their suggestions. All I asked on was
suggestions for authors,
titles, or subjects. There were usually a few jokers
who would request
pron, but I weeded those responses out as invalid.
Hi Molly,
I recently conducted a survey during Teen Read Week.
I'll attach it so you can take a look. Right now, the
teacher who has a class in probability and statistics
is analyzing the data. Good luck.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Maldonato
Flemington, NJ
Molly Bates
Language Arts teacher
Muscle Shoals High School
Muscle Shoals Alabama
MLIS student
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa Alabama
mbates@mscs.k12.al.us
mollybates35653@yahoo.com
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