Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Recognizing the time to change
I've been mulling over a big change in my library for the past several months. The change to shelve my fiction collection according to genres and not simply the traditional way of alpha by author. I've always stressed to my students the importance of knowing the authors and what types of books they write as well as using the catalog to find books they would enjoy. This seems to work very well...for those students who love to read. If my goal as a librarian is to put the perfect book in the hands of each student (especially those non-readers who would rather be anywhere else but the library) then surely arranging them this way will only help me achieve that goal. Lately I've read some blog posts of librarians who have gone to the "dark side" and arranged their fiction section by genre. Their success stories impressed me and some even provided guidance on how they started the transition. I began thinking this might be something I could do. What sealed the deal though was the various discussions I had with several students explaining the idea. Each and every one had a glint in their eye, a smile on their face, many clapped their hands and all stated this would be "soooo much better" than the current arrangement. "Ok," I thought to myself, "I better do this thing!". But the thing that got me even more motivated was when I explained to the students some of the issues this might bring up (would we shelve zombie books in sci-fi or horror?). The debates that ensued were a librarian's dream. I've even had some students ask when and how could they help! So, here goes nothing, or rather something quite big. During the last month of the school year, an extremely busy time in the library (there's never really a slow time), I will be re-cataloging, labeling and re-shelving close to 8,000 books. This should be interesting; I'll keep you updated!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Good luck with the changeover! I genrefied my library a few years ago, but only used labels, no moving of books. My teachers helped me out which was great to have them see what books we had. The discussions about what falls under what genre were fabulous. I knew what I thought was each genre but had to clarify and codify it.
ReplyDeleteI recommend creating your genres and what falls under each genre. For example, I have fantasy and paranormal as separate categories. Paranormal is for fantastical elements in our real world while fantasy is more the classic fantasy books. But where do superheros go? Where does time travel go? Those are still my two biggest questions.
Our general rule of thumb was to think about what would the reader want from it. If we labeled it as sports, would an athlete find it more about sports or a love story, for instance.
oH My! Good luck on this awesome and daunting endeavor! But knowing you, you'll get that whipped out in no time. Let me know if you need any help in the summer time. I'd love to help out and learn more about the MS library! ;)
ReplyDeleteI love this idea -- it just makes sense! Let me know if you need help this summer. I have some teenagers that I could lend you! ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the offers of help, ladies! I'll follow up if I see I've taken too big of a leap! Jennifer, I created my genres and have decided to go with supernatural instead of paranormal. One blog I read had this great tip, "if you take away the magic! creatures/weird stuff and your left with a world we could live in, it's a supernatural/paranormal book." So I like that. Can use the setting as a helpful tool. I started pulling some books today and used that rule of thumb -where would more people find this book or where would it most likely be read? I'm eager to see if pulling it in a smaller genre will generate more interest in a book. Seems like too many get lost in the crowd of the larger sections.
ReplyDelete