Angela Carstensen
A new, revised Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners (OBCB) list is created every five years by a committee comprising public and school librarian members of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and college librarian members of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).
The lists are “primarily intended for students in grades 9–12 who wish to enrich and strengthen their knowledge of various subject areas in both classic and contemporary literature,” and the purpose of the list is to “provide reading recommendations to students of all ages who plan to continue their education beyond high school” (as stated in the OBCB Policies, included as an appendix to this volume). The lists also have a long history of appealing to adult lifelong learners, parents, teachers, administrators, and the librarians serving those constituencies.
Current criteria for choosing titles for the lists include readability, cultural and ethnic diversity, balance of viewpoints, variety of formats and genres, and title availability. Recently, the focus has been on a balance between “modern classic titles and those that are newer or speak to current events.”
This book is a compilation of the Outstanding Books for the College Bound lists from the past ten years (1999, 2004, 2009), and highlights practical suggestions for using the lists.
Chapter 1 is the first history of the OBCB to be written and published. It demonstrates how the evolution of the OBCB has echoed (and at times contradicted) changes in the American educational system since its beginnings in 1959. This chapter answers the question: Who started the lists and why?
The following four chapters offer practical advice on using the lists with readers in school, public, and college libraries, with a chapter devoted to each, as well as a chapter devoted to lifelong learners. From collection development and readers’ advisory to curriculum development and programming, the OBCB lists are relevant for librarians serving teens, young adults, and adult lifelong learners.
Each year, changes were made in the OBCB tradition. In 1999, the title of the lists was changed, adding “and Lifelong Learners” to its name. In 2004, ACRL members were included on the selection committee for the first time. As for the books themselves, a comparison of the 1999 and 2004 lists shows that starting in 2004 the focus shifted from tried-and-true classics to recent literature, or “modern classics.”
The year 2004 also ushered in a new set of categories for the lists, created to mirror college curricula. In 1999 the five categories were fiction, nonfiction, biography, drama, and poetry. In 2004 they were changed to humanities, history, literature and language arts, science and technology, and social sciences. In 2009 the categories were updated to arts and humanities, history and cultures, literature and language arts, science and technology, and social sciences.
The introductions to the 2004 and 2009 lists are careful to state that the lists include a combination of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography, and drama, creating a conscious bridge to the past.
In the final section of this book, the 1999, 2004, and 2009 lists are combined and re-sorted by genre. It is fortuitous that these three lists incorporate the old and the new, the classic and the modern, creating genre lists with a broad range.
Annotations have been expanded to more adequately express the subject matter and importance of each title. Titles also honored by the YALSA Alex Awards, Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA), and Michael L. Printz Award committees are indicated. All publishers and publication dates are for the first edition, and any titles currently out of print are marked o.p.
As the Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners tradition continues to help young students get the most out of their college education, to enhance the educational and cultural experiences of all readers, the tradition can never stop evolving. It will be exciting to witness where the OBCB lists might go from here, to continually reflect the times, the literature, and the librarians dedicated to their creation.