They are called “minor” only in the sense that they are shorter than Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The messages contained in these twelve little books are not in any way less important or significant than the bigger books. They were long called The Twelve because they were copied onto a single scroll of about the same size as that of Isaiah.
The way to avoid the slight embarrassment of paging through all twelve in search of any one of them is to memorize their order. Do it in 2/2 time with a finger snap on the second beat. The first beat, the downbeat of each measure, is indicated by capital letters. The chant begins with a brief pick-up note for the first syllable of Hosea:
Ho-SE-a [snap]
JOEL [snap]
A-mos, O[snap]-ba-DI-ah [snap]
JO-nah, MI[snap]-cah, NA-hum [snap]
And the rest are easy: Two H-Z pairs followed by Malachi
[snap] Habakkuk, [snap] Zephaniah
[snap] Haggai, [snap] Zechariah
[snap] Malachi
Try not to snap your fingers in church when looking up one of the Twelve.