H.W. Wilson's Senior High Core Collection (25th Edition, 2026) identifies the best, most highly recommended material available for high school libraries and young adult collections. It is a helpful guide to over 4,200 essential and recommended fiction and nonfiction titles for adolescents and young adults.This edition continues to emphasize equity, diversity, and inclusion, representing and reflecting a varied community in which many voices can be heard.

Librarians have relied on the expert recommendations in Senior High Core Collection for years for collection development guidance. It is an ideal tool for Purchasing & Title Selection, Readers' Advisory, Curriculum Support, Collection Development & Maintenance and Professional Development. Titles are selected by an editorial team of librarians as well as a librarian advisory group – all of them experts in library services to adolescents and young adults.

Enhanced Features

Featured metadata in this edition includes precise genres, sub-genres, and subject headings that consistently include both location and time period where appropriate. Books are easy to find through the index, and the metadata associated with each record offers consistent insight into the contents of the book. Particular attention has been paid to expanding our resources for teachers and other educators, including books capturing best practices for teaching or managing a classroom.

An in-depth Author, Title, and Subject Index provides users with thousands of ways to navigate this rich collection of recommended titles. Stars in the index indicate an Essential title. Whether searching by author, title, or one of the hundreds of subject areas found in the index, librarians can easily locate titles that will round out their collection.

Additionally, we continue to include an increased number of awards and short lists; all entries for titles in series will also include the name of that series.

The Core Collection is organized into two parts: the Classified Collection; and an Author, Title, and Subject Index.

Part 1: Classified Collection

This section is arranged according to Dewey Decimal Classification. Within classes, arrangement is by main entry, with complete bibliographical and cataloging information given for each book. The classified arrangement, along with the descriptive and critical annotations, provides a useful guide to book selection. Entries include such information as price and ISBN to help facilitate acquisitions.

Part 2: Author, Title, Series,and Subject Index

This is a comprehensive key to the Classified List with entries for authors, titles, and subjects. The Index is a single alphabetical list of all the books entered in the Core Collection. Each book is entered under author; title (if distinctive); series; and subject. The classification number, displayed in boldface type, is the key to the location of the main entry for the book in the Classified Collection. Appropriate added entries are made for joint authors and editors.

Every entry has been carefully selected by experienced librarians from public library systems and academic libraries across the United States. These specialists represent a diversity of backgrounds in librarianship for young people and possess a wealth of experience on national juries and American Library Association committees.

Senior High Core Collection, Twenty-Fourth Edition includes Essential titles within subject areas that are starred for easy identification and extensive revisions in the areas of computers, math, the sciences, and the arts, and additions to professional literature for the high school librarian.

Not only does this core collection serve as an aid in the selection and ordering of titles, but also as an aid in curriculum support, collection maintenance, and professional development.

The Senior High Core Collection is an essential resource for library and media specialists looking to enhance and enrich their collection with the most important and highly recommended titles currently available.