I also agree that 2 numbers past the decimal are not
always sufficient! In the holiday section, for example,
this dumps all your holidays together, all mixed up! By
using the full Dewey extension, holidays are separated
into a logical sequence, beginning in January and going
through December, with all the books about the same
holiday on the shelf together. Same goes for the Native
American books as mentioned in the secondary library.
Folktales will be separated by country of origin when
the full extension is used; animals in the 590's will be
grouped by species, type, etc. instead of just all
jumbled up by the author's last name. Those Dewey
extensions were developed for a very good reason, and
NOT using them really is a disservice to patrons, I
think.
I solved the problem of being able to see the entire
Dewey by relabeling ALL classified books with labels
that run up and down the spine, instead of around the
spine. That way it is easier to read across a shelf or
cart when searching for a particular number, instead of
having to turn your head one way to look at some spines
and another way to look at others. Someone on another
list suggested it must be nice to have the time to do
that...NOTE: I have NEVER had an aide, and at the time
I had only ONE volunteer for a couple of hours one day a
week. It took us all of one school year and part of the
next to do the entire collection; I printed the spine
labels a Dewey section at a time, and we worked on it a
few minutes "whenever" - but it was well worth it! It's
much easier to shelve & keep books in order, and it's
easier to find books!
--
Leah Hawkins, Librarian
West Hurst Elementary
Hurst, TX
leahleah@attbi.com
> Having been both an elementary and a secondary school librarian, I have to
> disagree that two digits beyond the decimal point are sufficient for
> secondary libraries. Certainly there are sections that don't need more than
> two, but in areas where we have large holdings, we need the differentiation
> provided by the longer number. For example, we have a large number books
> about Native Americans. I have separated them by geographic region using
> 970.4____ so that we don't have 8 shelves of 970.1 or 970.00497. Even
> though this isn't the preferred placement, it works for our collection and
> some of the call numbers have 3 or 4 digits beyond the decimal point. Also,
> limiting to two decimals doesn't always make sense. What good would it do to
> change 970.00497 to 970.00? Might as well put it in 970.... :)
>
> To address the original question: when a call number is too long to fit
> horizontally on the spine and be read in its entirety, we put it on
> vertically with the print running from top to bottom (like the printing on
> the spine of the book). This solves the problem completely for us. Since we
> use the authors entire last name, we often do this to accommodate the cutter
> and not the actual number or Fic.
>
> My two cents for this morning, :)
> Julie
>
> Julie Anderson, Librarian
> Liberty High School, Renton, WA 425.837.4901
> andersonj@issaquah.wednet.edu
>
> "So lend your voices only to sounds of freedom. No longer lend your strength
> to that which you wish to be free from. Fill your life with love and bravery
> and you shall lead a life uncommon." Jewel Kilcher
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sharron L. McElmeel [mailto:mcelmeel@MCELMEEL.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 11:26 AM
> To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: TARGET: Spine Labels
>
>
> I made it a practice to use only the two digit extensions beyond the
> decimal point. In most elementary (and dare I say secondary)
> libraries the collections were not so extensive that more than 2
> digits were necessary. Since most books came in with call numbers
> written in too small print anyway we always retagged new books with
> large print call letters and took that opportunity to edit the call
> numbers to the two digits. With the electronic catalog the change in
> the records was only a 2 second job. ;>)
> Busy schedules are not unusual and it seems that prioritizing duties
> is a must -- we must be careful that the priority does not go to the
> expedient but rather goes toward being a proactive advocate for
> reading and literacy. ;>)
> Sharron
>
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