Trends in YA literacy study

 Despite its name, the young adult genre is increasingly dominated by stories about older teens and even adults. But as protagonists get older, younger readers are getting left behind, a University of Mississippi study indicates.

Ally Watkins. (2025). Is Popular Young Adult Literature Aging Up?, New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship.  DOI: 10.1080/13614541.2025.2513193

http://schoollibraryjournal.com/story/6-Grant-Opportunities-School-Libraries

Teens and tech research

This article discusses findings from 3 Pew Internet Projects, providing an overiew of tech in teens' lives, the role of libraries in the lives of older teeas and YAs, and the impact of the Internet on middle and high school students' research habits.
Zickuhr, K. (2014). Teens and tech: What the research says. YALS (winter), 33-37.

Diversity in YA novels

With increasingly diverse service populations, especially among younger patrons, libraries are in need of more titles featuring individuals from varied backgrounds. Librarians often rely upon preassembled title lists, such as YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) list or the Publishers Weekly bestsellers list, to make collection development decisions. This study examined three such lists for the prevalence of diverse protagonists, with the goal of determining which list most closely aligns with actual demographic data for U.S. teens. Award-winning, Teens’ Top Ten, and bestselling titles were included in the study. Overall, the award-winning title list included the highest percentage of protagonists belonging to most marginalized demographic groups, while the bestselling title list included the lowest percentages in these categories. However, all three lists underrepresented protagonists from certain demographic categories. Based on these results, it is recommended that librarians supplement list-based collection development with purposive collection of titles featuring minority protagonists and/or written by minority authors.
Rawson, C. (2013). Are all lists created equal? Diversity in award-winning and best-selling young adult fiction. Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults (6).
http://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/2011/06/are-all-lists-created-equal-diversity-in-award-winning-and-bestselling-young-adult-fiction/

Public library YA services report

Statistical report highlights key YA data
PLA’s 2007 PLDS Statistical Report includes a special section on young adult library services. Some findings in this special section include: Young adults comprise an average of 11.28% of a public library’s service area, and about half of all libraries surveyed have at least one full-time equivalent librarian dedicated to YA services.