Separate Fiction Series Shelving

[Susan Miles]

There was some talk a bit ago here on the usefulness of shelving fiction series separately. For those of you who do this, can you explain the criteria you use to determine which sets are separated from the main collection? Do you then shelve them by author or series? How do your students respond to the separation?

Just needing some help thinking this concept through.....

Thanks!
Sue

[Allison Williams]

We have what we call "Basket Books" which are the series we buy in paperback (A-Z mysteries, Secrets of Droon, Nancy Drew Notebooks, Magic TreeHouse etc.) The baskets fill 2 bookcases. All the books are fully catalogued. The baskets are arranged alphabetically by series but the books are stored randomly in the baskets of their series. It is up to the kid to locate the one he is looking for.
We shelve other series (Lemony Snicket, The Warriors, Narnia et. al.) on the regular fiction shelves by author. We are debating whether to arrange by title or number within the series. What are your thoughts?

[George Webber]

With numbered series, it makes sense to shelve the books (e.g. snicket) by their number in the series. Especially when the numbers are displayed on the spine and there is an order; such as Animorphs, Harry Potter, etc.

[George Webber]

In our case, it's a matter of available shelf space, and using the shelf top.
There is no different shelf and no distinct call number.
We simply pull some of the popular series that have many titles and copies and put them on top of the shelf, above in the vicinity of where they'd be shelved. Examples are Goosebumps, Junie Jones, etc.

We are shy of actual shelf space by about 12 feet during regular use (when we're closed, in the summer, we're nearly double stacked to be down on shelves.
By putting these series on top, the actual fiction shelves aren't all so crammed.

[Trish Wade]

We have 'Series Boxes' for the simpler series, aiming at students who are stepping up from picture books to simple chapters, like Rainbow Magic, Boyz Rule, Magic Schoolbus and so on. They are labelled - example is for Rainbow Magic - SB/F/RAI (Series Boxes/Fiction/Rainbow Magic). The location is correctly listed in the catalogue.
We use book boxes purcahsed from a company called Elizabeth Richards. http://www.elizabethrichards.com.au/

[Gail Komarek]

We have a book cart with 3 shelves on each side. One shelf holds Magic Tree House, another has Junie B. Jones, Babysitters Club, Arthur, Animorphs, A-Z Mysteries. We have some addtional shelving that hold Dear America, American Girl, A Series of Unfortunate Events,vWeird School, Carole Marsh Mysteries, Box Car Children. The kids know where the series books are and head right over to get the next book to read. If it is a series of 3, we file them by the author.