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Hi, everyone!

This is my late “hit” about shelving fiction by genre
as opposed to using genre labels within the
collection.  The overall consensus was to intershelve,
so I’m planning on relabelling all genres and
integrating my mysteries into the regular fiction
(they're now shelved separately).  Thanks to everyone
who responded!

Beth Meister, Librarian
Yeshiva of Central Queens, NY
librarybeth@yahoo.com


I decided to intershelve all but the Mystery and SF as
they are quite large.  I use the stickers.  I found
that when I shelved the Newbery separately, no one
used them.  I am thinking about shelving chapter books
separately.  I use the stickers for myself, not just
the students.  That way I can pull out the genres
easily.


I have grades 6-8, but if I had lower grades, I'd
still shelve all fiction books alphabetically by
author.  That is standard procedure and the way they
are most likely to find books in the public library.
I don't want them to be at a disadvantage by learning
it the correct way.


I recommend that you keep all your fiction together,
alpha by author.
Use the genre stickers to help students find a
particular kind of fiction, but keep them all
together. I am a strong believer that the more we
divide the collection, the harder it is for patrons to
find books.


You need to decide what is your goal.  Ours is to
create life long library users.  To do that we need to
be sure that we follow standard library procedure even
in our shelving so that students will know how to use
all libraries (not just ours.)  Standard library
shelving is fiction arranged by last name of the
author.


If you decide to pull out separate sections, make sure
your catalog entry reflects this.  I feel you punish a
person who knows how to use the catalog and wants to
do so, when the books are not where they are supposed
to be.


I do not separate any of them out but use the genre
stickers.  It gets too difficult to look in several
different places.  IMHO


We shelve all fiction together, but use lots of
labels. The children learn to search the shelves for
the labels - just like our local public library. I
feel that keeping it similar to the local public
library helps the children when they get to that
library and need to search the shelves.


I feel very strongly about not separating genres into
special sections. You have already made it easy for
students to identify different types of books, but
isolated sections actually make it harder for them to
learn about library arrangement. (Is this book Fic Le
in the mystery, sci fi, Newbery, or "normal fiction"
section?)  Plus browsing allows them to try a
different type of book than they would normally read.
One of our state academic standards is to have
students identify and self select different genres.
Just my thoughts.


I was the one who asked the question about reshelving
the NF.
I separated the Newberys and Caldecotss my last year
at my last school.  It seemed to work well and it was
easier to do the Newbery and Caldecott units. The
teachers liked it too.  Also, when parents came to
look for a good story or higher reading level, it was
easy to direct them.  It also gave students an
alternative when they were looking for an AR book.  I
would not consider shelving the fiction by genre.  It
will take longer to shelve and might not be consistent
with the public library.  What I do is put the genre
stickers on them and make sure the book's genre is
listed under a subject tag in the MARC record.  When
the patron wants a list of 'Fantasy' books all they
have to do is type enter 'fantasy'.  I know if you
don't already have it this way it can be
time-consuming.  I'm at a new school this year and
have to do the same thing, but, personally, I think
it's worth it.


I have started work this year in a High school 7- 12
where the librarians decided last year to shelve the
books by genre. I have probably done about one third
of them this year and thought I had finished yesterday
when my assistant quenched my excitement by telling me
there was a box of easy readers in the literacy
teacher's area not yet allocated.
It was a job I thought fairly pointless and many books
do not fit a genre. The joke is - if it does not fit
anywhere put it in relationships.
I find it hard to locate a novel for a student as I
have to use the catalogue computer whereas in my
previous schools I just went to the shelves if I knew
the author. The other librarians say borrowing of
novels is up but we do not have any definite
statistics yet.


I just returned all collections to the shelf.  I
started at the  1/2 year last year and returned in the
fall.  My experience is that students become dependent
on a grouping.  I found kids who liked The Giver but
had no idea Lowry had written anything else.  I use
stickers for awards but they are no longer grouped.
I have taught several lessons on using the on line
catalog using examples of popular types of books and
titles.  When students ask for a book we look it up
together.  I teach finding books and it has worked.
Also doing shelf reading was difficult when little
collections were all over the place.


I prefer to shelve them according to the system I try
to teach the kids.  Under the best circumstances, the
teacher tells me ahead of time, what they'll need for
book reports, and
I pull them for a fascinating booktalk to that class
just before checkout.


At a previous K - 6 site, I had all my regular
(hardcover) fiction organized by author (no extra
genre labels)on my standard shelving, and a separate
stand-alone bookcase with my paperbacks organized by
type. For example, the biographies had a B on (a dot
on) the spine, Historical Fiction, HF, mysteries, M,
etc. This made it very easy for student helpers to
reshelve the paperbacks according to genre. I also had
two rotating towers for regular paperback fiction.

I found that organizing my PAPERBACKS this way was
easy and because we had good support of book fairs, I
was able to stretch my book budget with paperbacks and
have plenty of each assigned genre (and possibly
several copies of popular titles) without taking up a
lot of space. I spent regular book budget money on the
hardbound versions of the award winners, notable
titles, and nonfiction. I also bought paperbacks for
"trendy" topics like current sports heroes and
personalities. Usually it's not worth spending money
on hardcover versions since the names are obsolete
well before a hardbound book wears out.

Another idea that anyone can use is quite simple: use
your opac to create a bibliography of whatever genre
you need and print it out. Then simply post it. The
kids can just look over the list and check the shelves
for the titles by author. Since I have only one
computer (my circ station computer)in my tiny library
I have no other options (other than genre labeling
which I don't have time for), but anyone who needs to
reserve their computers for more important searching
could do the same. And the kids should learn how to
find the book by author (or by Dewey number).


I am new to my school.  I previously worked at a
beautiful middle school where books were shelved by
genre.  I found this was great for browsing but a pain
when looking for a specific book.  Many times books
were difficult to classify into a genre causing other
problems.
In my new school I decided to keep all fiction
together but to add genre labels. Its worked for me.


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