HIT=>alt terms for 'nonfiction' etc

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Here, at last (I was sick for several weeks) is (taDA)

HIT=> Alternative terms for 'nonfiction' and 'call number'

About one third of the people who responded to my question
advocate using the common terms.  Most offered the definitions they
use for fiction and nonfiction, several saying they link NONfiction
with Not fiction.  Which, as I said, defines one large section of our
libraries in terms of what it isn't.  One person asked why it is a
problem _now_?  It is for me because I just got out of library school
and have only been struggling with the problem for just three or so
years.
        One person had this to say: "I think that you need to consider
your mission as a school media center.  Ultimately you want your
students to become "library literate" and develop the propensity to
use information collections and resources after they leave school,
right?  Consider then, that the standard terminology is what makes it
possible for them to transfer their research skills from one collection
to another.  The rest of the world is not going to change with you.
I've dealt with this for a long time with teachers who want me to call
EASY something different so that their students won't be insulted.  I
tell them that, in spite of my Ph.D,., I'm not going to
argue with the Library of Congress!"
        OK, so now I will get on my soap box labeled "accessibility"
and talk more about why I posted this question.  Most of the
population is not library literate.  The percentage of people who use
the local library varies from community to community, but take a
look at the way libraries are valued when they are up for votes for
funding.  I will argue that teaching our current system with the
current terminology doesn't make people library literate, it makes
them (mostly) library-shy.  Public librarians do a heroic job of
getting people into and using their libraries.
        The assumption of most people is that if you change the terms,
if you (God forbid!) change the system, the kids will be lost when
they go to out into the real world and to their public library.  Let me
tell you a story.  A friend of mine who had no library training took
the job of librarian in a small private school (about 20 years ago).
The school had only half-heartedly used Dewey to classify books,
and the library was a mess.  She had observed that Dewey
classification didn't make much sense to kids, so she designed a
system that did.  The basis of the system was seven main categories,
each assigned a color and subdivided by numbers.  Generally, a child
needed a color and a one-digit number to locate a subject.  When I
studied this system for a paper several years ago, I asked how the
kids did when they went to the public library.  The children's
librarian at the public library told me that kids from that private
school were very comfortable with the Dewey system.  You see, they
had been using a classification system that _made sense_ to them,
that they could really use to find what they wanted and that they
had been able to use even before they could read.  So when they
came on another system, they could use what they knew about how
a classification system works, what it is about to understand the
Dewey system.
        Obviously we can't change Dewey.  We don't have the time or
money, even if many of us were convinced it made sense to do so.
So my solution is to look for ways to adapt the system we are given,
which I maintain *does not make sense to most kids* and therefore
puts an unnecessary barrier between the kids and getting books out
of a library.  The Library of Congress (or Dewey, for that matter)
isn't a system for children, but adult readers.  So I will argue with LC
when what LC does clearly gets in the way of children's access to
books.  One small step is to at least use words that make some kind
fo sense to the kids.

        OK, off the soap box and on to reporting on alternative terms
that people are using:

Many people had alternate terms for 'call number'.  They included
        address, location key, location label, shelf address

People were less satisfied and more stumped when it came to a term
for nonfiction, but offered these:
        number books, Dewey books, faction, categories, Dewey
        Decimal books

Here are some of the comments:

        Even with 9th graders, it's sometimes necessary to go through
these explanations [of the standard terms] again.....and again....and....

        I couldn't agree with you more that some of our terminology
has terminal effects on the kids.

        I use the "key" symbol a lot.  i.e. Indexes (indices) are the
doors to information, and the "keys" of "subject," "author," and "title"
are the keys to open that index door; there are, of course, "key
words" to be utilized in searches too.
        Non-fiction is a phrase I won't let the students breathe out
loud.  I literally put my finger to my mouth and whisper back to
them a resounding "No."  It simply means anything that is not fiction,
a very negative and unpleasant way of designating something.  Also,
it's useless as far as locating a book -- there are just too many of
them.
        Instead we discuss the easy Location Keys of "F" and "B" and
"SC" and the special addition of "R" to reference books.  Then we
launch into the real stuff -- a cartoon of ole Melvil and his "dot",
followed by the ten big classifications/divisions/groups/piles
/whathaveyou embellished by drawings of someone resembling
Freddie Flintstone's uncle (all on transparencies.)

        I can't call them non-fiction either.  The kids get confused
when they learn what that word means.  It doesn't cover that
section.

        The real thing we need to try to teach is that library
classification is basically a location scheme.  It doesn't have much to
do with true and not true, fact and fiction.  I'm not sure the two
concepts should be taught together in elementary school.

Sometimes, when enough people struggle with the same issue, the
rest of the world does change.  The key is to be very selective in
using non-standard terminology.  I believe "Easy" is not only
insulting, it is inaccurate.  Many picture books are written at an
intermediate or even 7th or 8th grade reading level.  What ties the
books in that section together is that they have pictures.  Therefore I
decided to use "P" instead of "E" for the call number.  I make sure to
tell the students what labels they might find in other libraries,
although those aren't as standard as we might believe.  Up to now I
have been making new labels for all the picture books I order from
Follett.  Evidently enough librarians have made the same decision so
Follett now offers "P" as one of their options for picture books!

Anyway what I started to say was that I don't think the Library of
Congress has much to do with these terms.  Nor does the Dewey
Decimal System.  I thought they were just things librarians came up
with to group books on the shelf they way they thought would be
most useful to their patrons.  Does anyone know the who and when
about these terms.  Were they actually adopted by any organization?


That's all, folks!
Johanna
Rabble Rouser from Massachusetts

Johanna Halbeisen
Rebecca M. Johnson School
(K-8) Springfield, MA
jhalbei@k12.ucs.umass.edu
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