Young adult literature (YAL) is often described as books written for an audience of 12-20 year olds. It may also include books primarily written for adults but which have appeal to younger readers. Most of the YAL books will be found on the second floor of Ablah Library.
How are the books arranged?
Fiction books:
Fiction books will have call numbers beginning with:
PZ
5
823
The rest of the call number will be determined by the author’s name and the book title.
Nonfiction books:
Nonfiction books will have label “call numbers” beginning with:
PZ
5
Next comes a three digit number (sometimes followed by a period and more numbers) that is based on the Dewey Decimal classification. The remainder of the nonfiction call number will be determined by the author’s name and book title.
The major Dewey class numbers are:
Class 000 -- Computers
Class 100 – Philosophy & psychology
Class 200 – Religion
Class 300 – Social sciences
Class 400 – Language
Class 500 – Science
Class 600 – Technology
Class 700 – Arts & recreation
Class 800 - Literature
Class 900 – History & geography
So, as an example the following book about girls and computer coding has a number beginning 005. The G64357 is related to the author’s name (Gonzales) and the g5 is related to the first word of the title (girl). Also: please note the call number appears as it would on the book itself.
Girl code : gaming, going viral, and getting it done / Andrea Gonzales and Sophie Houser.
PZ
5
005.1
G64357g5
Graphic novels:
Graphic novels will have call numbers beginning with:
PZ 5 741.5
The rest of the call number will be based on the author’s name and book title.
(Information about the call numbers system borrowed from handout prepared by Nancy Deyoe, Associate Dean for Technical Services and Jessica Torres, Information Services Research Assistant)
Using the Advanced Search feature
With the Advanced Search you can use a combination of keywords to find young adult/children’s books. It allows you to try any number of keywords (or subjects) – and get a more targeted result list.
Click on the “Advanced Search” link on the catalog screen. “Advanced Search appears below the “Add Filter” box.
The following screen will appear:
The advanced search gives you several search boxes that can be joined to make a more specific catalog search possible. As an example,we'll search for a fiction book about mermaids.
Notice in the screenshot below “mermaids” has been typed in the first box. The "as a phrase” and “keyword anywhere” options have not been changed. The phrase “juvenile fiction” has been entered in the search box on the second line – this term is telling the library catalog that we are interested only in fiction books for young adults/children. The “as a phrase” option has not been changed, but “Subject” has been selected from the drop down selections in the third box. We could also choose to select a range of years on this screen.
After clicking the "search" button, you'll see the results of your search on the results page.
(If you are looking for nonfiction instead of fiction, type “juvenile literature” instead of "juvenile fiction" into the search box)
The WSU Libraries adds information about some important book awards to our records for YAL books.
As an example, here is a search for the Printz Award.
Printz award is typed in the search box. Click on “Search”, and you will see a list of books that have either won the Printz Award or have been selected as honor books for that award.
