Focus on Youth: The Nonperson Gap in Public Library Collections Available to Purchase

For many public libraries true collection development representing service to the full range of individuals within the community will never come as long as the literature and behavior of the library profession continue to ignore the existence of adolescents. Consigning an entire group to the category of non‐persons is unworthy of a profession purporting to be a service‐based, client‐oriented operation. When the literature of librarianship ignores adolescents, as I hope to demonstrate below, it reinforces the mind‐set of all too many librarians that service to this group is not essential and its absence from a library's program of service is at least tacitly approved of by higher authorities in librarianship.