"So the discussions that I've been at haven't been so much about how YA Lit has changed from then to now, but speculation as to what was happening then and what is happening now to create such a dramatic change in the existence/size of YA Lit as a genre."

... I want to be at the YA panels you go to. In that sense, definitely the history is relevant.

Your experience fascinates me, because it is clearly so different from mine. The panelists, the audience, and the setting are all different--probably they are all factors, but I wonder which affect how the panel goes the most. Clearly I need to find an excuse to go to things like library conventions now.