Spine Labels for Picture Books

[Rachel Glasser <RKGLASSER@AOL.COM>]

We are a  private day school library serving grades pre-K to 8th, and are
considering changing the spine labels on our picture books.  We now use a
computer-generated label with E (easy) and the first three letters of the
author's last name.  In a recent visit to a public library, we saw the use of
large single letters with the author's last name initial.  This seemed to
make shelving and identification much easier even though the books were not
in alphabetical order within the specific letter and it was difficult to
locate a particular book.  What is your experience with this issue?  Any
other suggestions would be appreciated.  Since the spines are so narrow on
picture books, a regular label is often useless and we are finding accurate
shelving almost impossible considering the age of the children using this
collection.
Thank you for your help.  Please respond directly to RKGlasser@aol.com