Youth Collection

The Youth Collection, designed for the adult study of children's and young adult literature, contains more than 28,000 trade books, related reference sources, and a growing number of materials in electronic formats. Although a small historical collection is maintained, the focus of the Youth Collection is on recently published materials for people from birth through age 18.

Staff are responsible for selecting new materials, providing reference services, providing bibliographic instruction, maintaining and evaluating the collection, and serving as a professional resource for Iowa educators.

Search the Youth Collection   Collection History   
Services   Book Lists & Class Resources 
Additional Resources

About the Youth Collection

Children's books in a University Library? You bet! This excellent collection of children's and young adult literature includes the newest and best in the field.

Although the Youth Collection has been developed primarily for use by UNI students, faculty, and staff, everyone is welcome. Children must be directly supervised by an adult.

Textbooks, curriculum guides, and other instructional materials for school programs are available in the College of Education's Curriculum Laboratory, a division of Instructional Resources and Technology Services, Schindler Education Center.

Description of the Collection

The arrangement of materials in the Youth Collection is similar to that found in school libraries so that UNI education students can become familiar with this system as part of their teacher training.

The call number, location, appropriate interest level for each item, content summary, and additional information are indicated in the item record in OneSearch!, Rod Library's online public access catalog. Patrons can search the Youth Collection directly using the "Rod Library Youth Collection" option in Advanced Search.

Youth Collection floor plan

Finding Materials in the Youth Collection

 

OneSearch makes finding materials in the Youth Collection fast and efficient. In addition to the topic or other keyword you're interested in searching for, you may find these keywords helpful to add to your search:

  • fiction
  • "juvenile literature" (in quotes, to get mostly nonfiction results)
  • poetry
  • "stories without words" (for wordless books)
  • "picture books" (will include some nonfiction and some fiction results
  • "stories in rhyme"
  • biography
  • "graphic novels" (you can also try "comic books" if you're not seeing what you want)

You can also use Advanced Search to search by Title, Author/Creator, or Subject.

The record for each item indicates location, call number, and availability.

 

Electronic Resources

UNI subscribes to several databases that will assist you in identifying and reviewing materials related to children’s and young adult literature. Databases you are likely to use include such useful resources as the Children’s Literature Comprehensive DatabaseChildren’s Core CollectionEducation Full Text, and ERIC. Access these databases by going to the Rod Library Home Page and finding Databases A-Z. All available databases are organized alphabetically.

UNI also subscribes to research databases specifically geared toward PreK-12 students and educators. Access these databases through Databases A-Z. In the Subjects dropdown, choose "PreK-12 Information Sources" and then select the resource that best suits your purposes.

UNI students have access to additional PreK-12 databases through Iowa AEA Online. If you're in a teacher preparation program and don't know how to log in to these resources, the Youth Collection staff can help you out.