Ditching Dewey

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Comment by Peg Becksvoort on February 1, 2015 at 4:10pm

When you separate by genre, it then becomes necessary to indicate this change in your catalog. We use Follett Destiny. I am able to have a sublocation for each genre - more and better signage then becomes important. I tried having color-coded signs; that was lost on some patrons. Having a map of the library posted in several locations is also helpful.  Reading maps is a skill that is being lost in the time of the GPS. 

This is a complex task and one that requires planning and then, "just do it" attitude. 

Comment by Megan McQuinn on February 1, 2015 at 3:40pm

Will the webinar go into how's in addition to the whys of "gentrify" the library?

Comment by Alison O'Leary on February 1, 2015 at 10:43am

I am an elementary librarian an we were given the blessing of our library services director to "ditch Dewey" if we wanted to - knowing that there was no standardization and we were in fairly new territory. We are a large district and only a few of us took it on. First, I could never have started without Tiffany Whitehead! Second, it is not for the faint of heart - especially the non-fiction! It is a lot of (sometimes frustrating) work, and third, it is totally worth it. We made (and will make more) mistakes while choosing how to group topics and accepting that has helped me move forward. It takes a long time and a lot of stickers but you get to know your collection like you never did before.

Comment by Nicole Collins on January 30, 2015 at 9:35am

We added color coded genre labels to our middle and upper school fiction last year. We have 14 colors (sports, fantasy, mystery, etc) and each genre has a different color. The books are still shelved A to Z by author but the colors make it easier for the students who want to browse by genre while keeping the books together by author.

We have been discussing ditching dewey with our non-fiction in the lower school but haven't come up with a system that we are all happy with. We have some books where the dewey number goes 3-5 digits passed the decimal point (ie. this is the only way to keep dog books together by breed). I really feel this is too much for a young child. Wouldn't they find the books they want easier if there was a subject label instead (ie. Dogs / Poodles)? Do we need to keep a dewey number in there? We have over 10,000 items in the collection so what ever we do it  will require a lot of work. However, I feel having a library where the students are able to easily browse on their own and locate books without asking for help or copying down a 5-8 digit number plus letters, would be useful. Has anyone else ditched dewey with their non-fiction? What do you put on the spine labels? Has anyone around North Carolina ditched dewey? I'd love to visit and get some ideas.

Comment by Lynne Nigalis on January 29, 2015 at 7:56pm

I am in Thailand and thank you for scheduling something that is not in the middle of the night!! ON topic, I am a Nursery to DP2 (grade 12) international school librarian and I have ditched Dewey for <grade 2 only. All books for that age group are organized by category. As most of us have discovered, most books cross categories, but we decided to deal with that in keyword tags in our catalogue. We have JUST finished this process, finally, and the support from parents, teachers and students is overwhelmingly positive. Previously, the early years fiction books were organized by author's last name and the NF were in the stacks. 

Comment by Karen on January 29, 2015 at 3:36pm

I am about to commence a fiction genrefication project and am hugely interested in this too. I am in NSW, Australia so I probably won't be able to join in the actual webinar as it happens due to timing. Are these webinars archived? I'm guessing there will be an awesome twitter feed happening too - is there a # for this webinar? Thanks, Karen

Comment by Tracy Varner on January 29, 2015 at 1:57pm

@Kelly A Clark  I genrefied my library a few years back and found it easiest to add a prefix to my fiction call numbers to help identify not only the genre of the title but also the location where the book was shelved.  

For example, a mystery by Alan Bradley would have the call number MYS FIC BRA.  Globally adding a prefix in most systems is a quick task (although applying new spine labels takes a bit of time!) and makes it obvious to your catalog users in which genre their book is to be found.  

In addition, I ordered a variety of colored transparent spine label covers and assigned each genre a color.  My mystery books had green label covers.  This made it more efficient for students and staff to browse the genres and also made it easier for student and parent volunteers to accurately re-shelve books.

Finally, my genre groups were organized alphabetically around the room to make it easier for my browsers to find their favorite genres.

Comment by Rachel Livingston on January 29, 2015 at 1:21pm

I have "genre-ified" my JUV fiction and it has increased circulation, though it makes it harder to find books because I have not figured out a good way to add the genre into the MARC record.  I hope someone covers this! 

Comment by Sue Esterman on January 29, 2015 at 1:11pm

I'd love to join  this but am in NZ and the timing may not work. I am really interested in this topic and hope there will be a summary of comments after the session - any chance of that? I am about to "genrify" my fiction......

Comment by Anita Teel on January 29, 2015 at 12:28pm

I have just recently started this process. So many of my students come in and want to know where the differing types of books are. I know they would read more if they didn't have to sort through everything to find what they want. My plan is to give a letter designation in Destiny, so the catalog still makes sense. I am going to use stickers and letter coding to help with shelving. We are currently creating a Classics area and a Sports area.

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