Here is the message I posted on 4-3-03:
We are purchasing a growing number of bilingual books for our libraries for
our Spanish-speaking students. Those are the books that have the stories
written in both English and Spanish. We are not sure how to shelve them.
Should they be put together in a group by themselves, or, where they would
normally be shelved alphabetically or numerically if they were books writte=
n
in English?
Also, in some of our libraries the Spanish books are separated, and in some
they are shelved right next to the English version. What do you do with you=
r
foreign language titles?
Thanks for your suggestions.
_____________________________________________
Here are the messages I received:
We changed our policy and now put them in with the books in that language:
Spanish versions in with the 468s etc.
We intershelve Sp. or Sp./Eng. with English.
I am facing this same situation. I think that I plan to catalog them in th=
e
foreign language area 400's. Please let me know what response you get. TIA=
.
Marlene Frankel, librarian
Rio Americano High School
Sacramento, Ca. 95864
mfrankel@sanjuan.edu
www.sanjuan.edu/schools/rioamericano/library
Where you put your dual-language titles is really up to you to decide.
Some thoughts:
1) do you have a really large Hispanic population? It may be better to keep
them as a separate collection. If it is small, keep them together with thei=
r
English versions or interfile them with your other Dewey books.
2) are your Hispanic students good English/Spanish readers? If not, you
should also arrange a separate collection for them to find the books easier=
.
In this case, the student body does not matter . . .
3) what does the public library in your district/town does? If they shelve
the books as a separate collection, you might do the same. After all, when
your school library is closed, they will go to that library. It is less
confusing for them and do not have to learn two different ways to get books=
.
I have a separate, very small collection, not more than 30 Spanish books
arranged the same way as the rest of my collection.
Luis R. Ramos, Librarian
ACORN Community HS, Brooklyn, NY
flyer13@aol.com
I've been shelving the foreign language/english books in the 400's
depending on the language.
Hello Donna,
This is what we have done in our library. The Spanish titles are designate=
d
with SPA on the spine label. They look like this for fiction, easy books
and non-fiction:
SPA
F
CLE
SPA
E
GOO
SPA=20
345.64
YOU
Our Spanish fiction is separate from the English fiction. This is because
it makes it easier for our Spanish teachers to pull out fiction titles.
However, in our non-fiction section, English and Spanish are mixed together
according to subject, regardless of language. Our Easy books section are
also mixed together. Students are taught to look for SPA on the spine
label. =20
Before I came to this library, the Spanish books had a blue sticker on the
spine label to show that they are Spanish. This is great for a quick
determination of the language of the book, but we added the SPA to the call
numbers for statistics. Our school board wanted to know how many Spanish
titles we had in each section. This was not possible to determine with the
"blue sticker" method, so we added SPA to all of our Spanish titles, both i=
n
the catalog and on the spine label.
As for bilingual books, our non-fiction books are shelved according to
number, so there is no problem with that. Since our easy books are
interfiled as well, we just shelve them according to the author. We don't
have any bilingual fiction books for older readers, so we haven't had to
deal with that.=20
I hope this helps.
Karna Antoniw
Librarian
Instituto San Roberto
San Agustin Campus
(5281) 8625-1518
kantoniw@sanroberto.edu.mx
We just won a large grant ($813,000) for our school's reading program.
One of the components is to have a Spanish language collection. I talked
it over with our Family Literacy Coordinator and our Literacy Coach -
both bilingual; one native and one American. Since we want our parents
to use them, our Hispanic students and our English speaking students who
are interested to use them, we decided they need to be separate and very
visible. We figured the parents will be more likely to come in and look
at them if they can see them from the door or windows. Let me know what
others say.
TIA
T. K. Cassidy
proudly serving the staff and students
of Dug Gap Elementary =80 Dalton GA
706.226.3919
Ours are shelved where they belong, beside the corresponding books in
English or Chinese or Korean or whatever. It's not doing English learners a
favor to segregate their books into a separate section. They need to learn
to locate materials and it's good when they can see items with the English
and other lang choice together. Some kids check out both.
I think it depends on your intention for the use of the books. If they are
to be used primarily as language materials, then I would shelve them in the
400's. If you are wanting to use them for the specific subject areas that
they are written for, then I would integrate them into the collection. Som=
e
people will argue that they should be placed by themselves in a special
section, and while this is an option, the only advantage is convenience.
Hi Donna,
In the last 4 years, I too have been developing a bilingual collection for
our Spanish speaking students. I have set aside one set of shelving for the
bilingual books. In that section, we have separated these books into easy,
fiction, and non-fiction. This way they still have to use their skills to
find
Mine all go in the "Language" 400 section on the Dewey side of the library.
I'd put them where they belong, rather than in a separate location.
In our public library system, which consists of 10 libraries, we shelve the
bilingual books normally along with the rest--picturebooks in the Easy
section, Juvenile Non-fiction in its appropriate Dewey number, etc. If a
library patron who speaks and reads English could use it, we shelve them
with the rest. The trick is to locate the bilingual books when you want
them. We use an additional subject tracing on the bibliographic record to
indicate "Bilingual--Juvenile fiction" etc. The librarians have to use the
subject keyword "bilingual" to pull up a list of titles and then search for
the available books.
However, if the book is entirely in another language and the library patron
would need to be able to read that language to use it, we have it in a
section called Foreign Language, separated by type of language. The majorit=
y
of our books in the Foreign Language collection is in Spanish because that
language is used in our community.
Hi- I work in a public library-I am in charge of the Spanish collection and
it is interesting that you pose this question. Just this week we had the
same thought. We house our Spanish collection separately. The bilingual
books are catalogued as Spanish books and are housed with the Spanish
collcetion. What we are intending to do now is to put a spine label that
reads-BILINGUAL-so that the patron can find it easily. - Debbie Bergen
We have English, French and Arabic books and shelve them together at the
high school, middle school and elementary level for NONFICTION. Fiction is
organized by language.
For preschool everything is organized by language.
This really works well for us.
I am a first year ms in an elementary. I'm trying to straighten out several
weird cataloging issues that I've inherited. My books written in Spanish an=
d
Spanish/English are shelved with the the 468 call number. Additions I've
made so far, I have also put there. It seems good for the students. I go by
this site to help with many of my questions.
http://www.ardsleyschools.k12.ny.us/AHSL_WEB/DeweyMap.htm
Thanks and good luck.
Melissa Burdett=20
Naples Park Elementary 685 111th Avenue N.
Naples, FL 34110 Phone 239-593-2646 Fax 239-593-2650
burdetme@collier.k12.fl.us
Our schools have a large number of bilingual books, some even teach in
Spanish. Some schools separate them into separate section. We have them
cataloged and shelved as regular books and add the language to the call
number. In addition, I put a pink dot on the book so it is easier to spot.
My
collection isn't as large as other schools and when I has them filed in the
400's they were never found. Interfiling them has been more successful.
Donna Guild, Elementary Librarian
San Luis Coastal Unified School District
San Luis Obispo, California
donnaguild@charter.net
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