Genre-Based Shelving

Here is the email I sent to our staff regarding genre-based shelving. I truly think this is going to be so much easier for staff and students, even though it will take some time to get used to and to work out any errors I made in cataloging. Thankfully it's a very flexible way of shelving!

At the bottom you'll see links to more specifics about our shelving.

                                                                                                                                                      

For the new library at Prairie Hill we have decided to shelve books according to genre in all sections. This is a trend that many school libraries are going to, including our libraries at Creek, Point and Prairie High. In these libraries, and many others around the country, genre based shelving is primarily done in the fiction section. However, since Hill is starting from scratch, we will be completely genre based in fiction, non-fiction, and picture books. 

The purpose of genre based shelving is to help students and staff be able to find books easier. We won’t have to spend a lot of time looking up books on the computer, because everything will be organized in a very logical way. If you are looking for a mystery, you’ll simply go to the mystery section. If you are looking for a book about immigration, there’s a section for that. I’ve tried my best to create non-fiction sections based on our curriculum, but obviously there are others, too. It will take a little time to get used to, but I truly believe it will be so much easier for everyone to locate resources, and even just to browse. 

I’ve started creating signage for the fiction & picture book sections. I’ve attached the link to the Google Presentation in case you want to look at it. I’m open to suggestions about wording or anything else you notice. There are 10 fiction sections (I’m going to move classics into their true genres) and 18 picture book sections, plus a “general” picture book sections for the few books that were hard to place. The “favorites” picture book section I will probably end up moving to their true genre as well. There were some things that I didn’t catch while create the categories, and as you can imagine, it was a lot of work to pre-sort the books into their categories and make those final decisions. Luckily, everything is flexible!

There are around 140 non-fiction sections. The signage for these will be much more simple, as they are more self-explanatory. They will be smaller and contain the name of the section & hopefully a picture or symbol that explains the category. I’ve attached the list that has all of the genres/categories for your information. However, it will be much easier for you just to stop in and see the library when we get going!

Also, the data is currently importing into the library catalog. It will take another hour or so to finish, but you are able to look up books right away! 

Here is the Google Doc that has all of our genres/categories listed.

Here is the Presentation with the genre signage. 

Here is the link to our Destiny catalog. 

There are Books!

Last Friday, Mackin delivered all of our books for our startup collection! I'm so proud of the high quality books that we purchased, and how well they will fit student interests & our curricular areas. I truly believe we purchased the best collection possible.

Our average age for fiction is 5 years, non-fiction is 4 years, and picture books are 8 years. We have approximately 14.5 books per student, which is a great start, but still allows us for growth. I'm sure I will find that certain areas won't be as heavily used, or that we ordered too many or not enough of a topic, but that is all part of the learning process! 

A picture book shelf. The inmost rows of picture books and non-fiction are on wheels, which makes them so easy to move around and will be great for when we need to have a large number of students in the library for author visits or book fairs!

Most of the shelves also have these beautiful endcap displays. I can't wait to dream up fun ways to display books in them!

Here's a picture of the historical picture book shelf to show the spine labels.

This is a picture of part of our guided reading collection. The non-fiction guided reading titles we bought to support the science/social studies curriculum are going to blow away our students and staff. They are amazing titles.

Here's part of the fiction.

The remainder of the fiction.

The non-fiction food/cooking shelf! 

We have this little window bench in the back corner, and this week will have our front reading corner finished, which will have benches like this. It is going to be awesome.

Looking from the back of a non-fiction row toward the front.

This is taken from the west wall, looking east.

This is from the front of the room, looking toward the circulation desk and the media services office.

And this is from the east wall, looking west. I don't think it could be any more beautiful!

Floor Plan

Just because it's fun to look at, here's a sketch of what the library setup will look like!

The circulation desk is at the front, it's just hard to see in this picture. There will also be a few differences, as a few of the shelves are mobile, so they won't necessarily be where they are in this visual. And the empty corner on the left side will be some soft seating for students to lounge/read.

The shelving on the left side will be the picture books, and the right side will be non-fiction. The taller shelves towards the top of this picture is where the fiction will go. All three sections will be shelved based on genre, not the DDS. More to come about that when I have time to sit down and post!

I can't wait to finally see the library, to meet the kids, and to sniff the new books! Don't you just love the smell of new books?!

Welcome!

Welcome to Prairie Hill Library!

The start of the school year is almost upon us, and our building is very close to being finished. We are very excited as a staff, and have had a few work days to get the year underway.

I have been busy working all summer processing guided reading, title 1, and leveled classroom readers. It has been a long process, and not always fun at times. Luckily, I've had some great helpers!

I can't wait to see how the next month unfolds and to finally get to see the physical library space. I know that it is going to be an amazing place and that I have wonderful people to work with!

These are pictures of processing the guided reading titles. This included cataloging them into the Destiny system, then barcoding, level labeling, taping, and stamping them. I'm estimating we will have around 12,000 guided reading titles. I am most excited about the non-fiction titles, and how they will perfectly support our science and social studies curriculum.

The last half of April and first half of May were filled with ordering and planning. Our library will be organized by genre, not the Dewey Decimal System. I will be posting about that at a later time, because it was a huge undertaking. 

Every time I thought I'd made progress with the current stack of boxes, more would show up. I'm thankful for whoever checked in the box in the bottom picture and left the smiley face. That made me laugh!