As of today, there are 25,837 different fiction items listed in the Children's Department of the Barrie Public Library. Statistically, we only need a random sample of 96 to afford predictions as to the entire collection within 10% accuracy, 95% of the time. The Barrie Public Library children's fiction catalogue is too large to break down easily. So, these 25,837 items represent books, CDs, videos, sound recordings and the like. Further, there is no breakdown for language. To be safe, I will double the sample size to ensure that well over 96 of the sample are books.
Okay, out of a sample of 191 items, we'll discard 21 in languages other than English (20 French, 1 Spanish). Also removed are the 22 video and audio items, plus one item in Braille. That leaves 147 conventional books sampled, which means that we can predict the characteristics of the Barrie Public Library's children's fiction department within 8% accuracy 95% of the time.
Once again, I recall that I am looking for male-authored books for boy young readers, dealing with earthly things. No ghouls, vampires, monsters, etc. need apply.
Of those 147 books in this sample, I discard 85 of them for being in the 4-to-8 age range. I note that 46 of these are written by females, 39 by males. Compared to its Orillia counterpart (61:39% female:male ratio), the Barrie Library at a 54:46% female to male ratio appears to be making more of an effort to balance the gender of authors for children in the 4-to-8 age range.
Examining the 62 remaining titles in the Barrie sample which might be of interest to boys using the considerations outlined above, almost 1/3 (19) are by female authors and girl-centred. Another 16 are by female authors (including 2 animal-centred and one vegetable-centred). I'll also eliminate additional titles which are girl-centred or girl-boy centred (4 apiece).
That leaves 19 books (13%) of our sample in Barrie's young reader's collection written by male authors which are boy-centred. That is well over twice as many as the Orillia Library (at just over 5%) has to offer. A bias against male-authored, boy-centred books for young readers at Orillia? Compared to Barrie, at least, apparently so.
Back to those 19 books in our Barrie sample by male authors and boy-centred for young readers. Of those a full 14 deal with earthly matters. That is an admirable 9.5%, or almost one in ten books in the Barrie children's department which are male-authored, boy-centred and for young readers who do not wish to be scared by the supernatural. As a father of two boys in that age range, what do I have by comparison at my local Orillia Library? Barely over 2%, or about 1 in 50, on the shelves at Orillia. In other words, the Barrie Library has five times the representation as Orillia's library. Wow.
Put into plain terms, say you're the parent of a young reader who happens to be a boy, and wishes to find him a novel to read which is written from a male perspective (who else in the world has experienced life through a boy's eyes?), and don't want to be scared by unworldy stuff. Or say you are the boy himself. You can browse the children's department at Barrie and reasonably expect one in ten books to be of consideration.
At Orillia? You would have to flail through fifty books to find one of possible interest.
Good thing I have a Barrie library card!
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