The Big Picture of YA Services: Analyzing the Results of the 2012 PLA PLDS Survey

Beginning in 1988 and commissioned annually by ALA's Public Library Association (PLA), the PLA Public Library Data Service (PLDS) asks US and Canadian public libraries to answer survey questions relating to library collections, expenditures, staffing, and services. (1) In 2007, and again in 2012, the survey included a special section with questions relating to YA services. (2) This article will summarize and analyze the results of the 2012 PLDS YA services survey and compare them with the results from the 2007 survey to paint a broad picture of the current state of public library services for adults. (3) General Findings from the 2012 Survey In 2012, postcards and reminders were mailed to 9,206 public libraries in the United States and Canada asking for voluntary completion of the survey. A total of 1,832 libraries, or about 19 percent of the 9,766 public libraries in the United States and Canada combined, completed the survey in whole or in part. (4) Of these 1,832 responding libraries, 1,469 completed some or all of the YA services questions. Responses indicated that more than four-fifths (83 percent) of these libraries defined young as ages twelve to eighteen. The remaining 17 percent targeted youth as as age nine up to those as old as age twenty-one. Overall, the survey results paint a mixed picture of the current state of YA services. On the positive side, during fiscal year 2011, together the responding libraries spent $47,453,083 on YA collections, circulated 64,577,181 YA materials, and held 177,413 YA programs attended by 2,896,898 youth. (5) Based on these figures, it appears that just this small subset of public libraries together are reaching a significant portion of the broader target population, the roughly seventeen million secondary school students in the United States and Canada combined. (6) Were spending, collections, and programming figures available for all 9,766 libraries, the portion of the target population reached would likely be much higher. The survey results also show that the responding libraries are offering these many YA programs and materials with relatively few dedicated staff members. There have been many discussions in the professional literature of the need for library staff with expertise in serving teens. (7) Still, according to the 2012 survey, only about one-third (37 percent) of responding libraries indicated that they had at least one YA specialist (librarian or paraprofessional) on their staff. For the 2007 survey, 62 percent had at least one staff person, either a librarian or a paraprofessional, dedicated to serving teens. The notably lower 2012 figure might be due to a much higher response rate for the 2012 survey than to the 2007 survey, but in any case, the 2012 figure is disappointing. It means that youth in many US and Canadian communities are losing out on the expertise that YA specialists can provide. The survey also asked respondents about spaces for housing YA collections. In general, the larger the responding library, the more likely it was to have a separate YA collection space. However, the data do not tell us what percentage of overall library space tends to be set aside for teen use, and whether or not teens are getting their fair representative shares of libraries' physical space allotments. Reflecting the great deal of focus in the professional literature about the growing importance of maintaining active web presences as a part of YA services, the survey also included questions relating to web-based programs and services. (8) Between 1,125 and 1,226 libraries responded to questions about dedicated library web pages, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. 65 percent of responding libraries had specific sections of the library website dedicated to adult services. Forty percent had Facebook pages or groups specifically for YAs, and just 17 percent had Twitter accounts for communication with YAs. …

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