About
BumperCrop is a a micro-digital library with a thoughtful and well-curated collection of resources highlighting selections from the 2012 Cream of the Crop young adult fiction titles selected by the Southern Maine Library District (SMLD) Book Review Group. The goal of BumperCrop Digital Library is to provide readers of young adult titles with a trustworthy resource for browsing recommended titles from the Southern Maine Library District Book Review group recommendations.
Mission
BumperCrop's mission is to use approchable, relevant tools to provide teens between grade 8 and 12 with substantive and authoritative resources about Cream of the Crop titles.
Collection Policy
BumperCrop resources must be “teen-friendly” for inclusion. In addition, all resources are included, based upon BumperCrop's collection policy principles of authority and authorship, availability, content, legality, and substance. BumperCrop uses the Internet Public Library's collection policy criteria (http://www.ipl.org/div/about/colpol.html#ForTeens) as a model for these principles:
- authority and authorship (current, accurate, trustworthy information on topics affiliated with authoritative sources presented by identifiable authors)
- availability (information should be freely available without barriers to complete and primary information)
- content (sites must provide substantive content beyond contact information)
- legality (compliant with U.S. copyright law and fair use guidelines)
- website design and functionality (well-organized, few or no ads; reasonable load time; working links)
The Bumper Crop library is intended as a resource for children and young adult readers wanting to dig deeper into the selected Cream of the Crop titles through the perspective of the books’ authors. The record for each included title contains an annotation providing a description of the book and a brief review (provided by the SMLD), subject keywords chosen from WorldCat(worldcat.org) bibliographic records, as well as a link to the author’s official webpage, or if unavailable, to a webpage provided by a social media resource (such as TeenReads, LibraryThing or GoodReads) or some other authoritative source. A publisher-developed author site is only included within BumperCrop if it is the best resource for that particular title.
Enhancement, Evaluation & Maintenance Plan
I intend to use data gathered using the Google Analytics plug-in to view the latest website visitation numbers and visitor statistics. In addition to tracking visitation statistics, I will be responsive to any comments from site visitors and plan on being the contact for the DL.I will try to garner promotion and support for BumperCrop through the SMLD.
For the next year, I intend to update portions of the site every three months; for example, news and announcements section will include news of literary honors and awards for CotC titles and the questions/answers page will include any frequently asked questions and answers. I will update the site next year with the new crop of selected YA fiction for 2013 and possibly begin including YA non-fiction next year, if the number of site visits grows over the next eighteen months. If the DL cannot gain traction after eighteen months, I may consider dismantling it.