High School Genrefication Reflection

As promised, enjoy this wonderful reflection from a high school library media specialist who embraced the un-deweying challenge.  Thanks Lauren for sharing!

Thoughts on Un-Deweying a High School Fiction Collection

Lauren Magnuson, Summer 2015

Overview: I had been following the Un-Deweying movement for several years and did not think I was a fan, but then I attended one of the workshops by Kelly and Sandy and was convinced that this would be a good move for Kenwood’s collection and would help my students. Having the benefit of their experience also reduced some of my apprehension. I also collaborated with Melyssa Kenney and Angie Sofinowski (details later in reflection).

Before the end of the school year, I met with my principal to explain why I wanted to un-Dewey our fiction collection and asked if she would be able to pay some of us to do it over the summer as it is a big project. I only asked for one person to help me but after the first day, I went back and asked if I could have others for the last day to help with the labeling. She agreed to pay up to 3 more people. Unfortunately, I was only able to find 2 part-time people. So she ended up paying 2 of us for 3 days and 2 others for 4 hours each. And, as you will read later, we didn’t finish the whole processL.

Since I had to have someone within my school help me, I put a lot of thought into who I wanted to help me do the project and chose one of our Science teachers who is an avid reader of YA and adult fiction and who was a member of our book club. I also knew that she was focused, thoughtful, and would not be afraid to offer ideas as we went through the process. It turned out to be a great partnership!

Time: It takes way more time than one might think! Compared to many high schools, Kenwood has a modest fiction collection, and it still took 2 of us over two 6.5 hour days to divide the books into genres which we had pre-determined and had pre-printed labels. On the 3^rd day, we were able to have 2 more people join us for 4 hours each to help with the labeling process which is also tedious and time-consuming.

The scanning process is not too bad thanks to other librarians figuring out how to do it in batches. Thanks for sharing!! (I used the individual updating method.)

On the 3^rd day, even with extra help, we were able to get all of the genres labeled and scanned, except for Realistic books which is by far my largest genre! So the Realistic books are shelved together but still need to be labeled and scanned after the school year begins.

Genre-dividing: Even though it took us so long, I think that I still wouldn’t want more than 2-3 people doing the dividing process because it would be too hard to remain somewhat consistent.

For example, I thought I was going to have Horror and Supernatural/Paranormal all be under Horror, but it became apparent as we divided books that we needed to keep them separate. As we went through the process, we had to continually make decisions such as deciding that vampires and werewolves are supernatural but angels and demons (i.e. good vs. evil) are fantasy. Sometimes LOC designations on the versa help; sometimes not. Sometimes we disagreed with the LOC and put them in a different genre to remain consistent with our guidelines or because we had read the book.

Many books are cross-overs between genres so, for example, every once in a while we put a book that traditionally would go in Historical Fiction into Mystery/Thriller hoping that a Mystery reader may be enticed to read other Historical Fiction books. We were very selective and only put a really good Historical Fiction book into another category as it will have a big challenge representing the genreJ.

Realistic: Probably close to a half of our books fell into this genre. We did do one sub-division of Sports which will have the Realistic label and an additional label Sports label. In the catalog it will be Realistic but they are shelved at the end of the Realistic section. At some point I may go back and make a Realistic/Sports sub-location so that when books are searched it is easier to know exactly where they will be.

 It becomes very difficult to tease out subdivisions as many of the books deal with multiple topics. We found this issue even with the Sports books. A book could be a romantic, illness, sports, LGBTQ book. As I’ve been thinking about it, I may get or make some labels or dots to put on books that would indicate topics that may interest kids. For example, our Para-med students have to read a fiction book dealing with a physical illness. I’d like an easy way for them to identify these books when browsing. I will still keep the books in Dewy order within the Realistic genre. If I do this, I may even integrate the sports books back in to the Realistic section.

High School Labels: Before the end of the school year, Melyssa Kenney (Parkville), Angie Sofinowski (Dulaney), and I collaborated and discussed possible genres for our collections. In general, we decided on the same, but we each have a little variation to suit our collections and our readers. Angie decided to go with pre-printed labels by Demco. Melyssa designed the genre labels to that look more high school appropriate which she nicely shared with me. Thank you, Melyssa!!

Guest Blogger - Anne Marie Martinelli

I just received this lovely email from one of last week's attendees and had to share.

Anne Marie writes:

Loved the Un-Deweying the Library workshop.  Took lots of notes and marveled at the circulation data.  I too see a lot of untapped potential in the PHES library.  There’s only so much time for book talks and only so much space (mine is a 2x5 book case top and a hallway showcase) to entice readers to pick up what you deem to be an enriching piece of literature.  Since I won’t have access to my library this summer (electrical work and a 3 week practicum) and in the fall I will be knee deep in portfolio, I loved…loved….loved that I can do this one genre at a time.  First step, to get my 3-5th graders started with their thoughts on organization and naming/labeling the various topics/genres.  I’m even adding some graph paper to my maker space to encourage students to change the layout of the library floor. 

I’m in awe and I’m inspired! 

 

Don't you just LOVE this?  Way to go Anne Marie!  I think it is great how she is giving her students some ownership of the library by allowing them to have some input in how the space is arranged.  What a great real life connection and application of their skills!  Way to work smarter.

Guest Blogger - Rita Godwin

I have been a bad blogger again but with good excuses (I hope!)  We held our first session for our district librarians and I have been fielding numerous excited emails from librarians who are eager to take the plunge into the genrefied library pond as well as emails from folks who attended our Common Ground session.  And, more exciting for me, my kiddo graduated from college! So allow me a proud momma moment as I gush and share a photo of him speaking at his college baccalaureate service.

Thankfully Rita Godwin, one of our attendees, was kind enough to email me a guest blog post to share with you all.  Thanks Rita!

The “Un-Dewey” training was awesome! Sandy and Kelly gave us great ideas to use to help us get started. Also, they explained the challenges they had and gave us great pointers about how to overcome those challenges. I took six pages of valuable notes to help me along the way. After the presentation, I snapped some pictures of Sandy’s beautiful library to get ideas about how to set the library up with signage and spaces. I am sold on the “Un-Deweying” process, and I can’t wait to get started!

We have another district session tonight (and hopefully another guest blogger or two) and then I will share the data that we have been sharing in our sessions.  I promise it is worth the wait.

Guest Blogger - Stacy Barry

As promised in a previous post, here are the thoughts from one of the Lighthouse School librarians that came to visit.

Greetings all from Libraryland! My name is Stacy Barry and I am the LMS at Rodger’s Forge E.S. I have been in the library at RFES for 3 years and loving every minute of it. This year has been a year of a lot of change, as we are 1 of the 10 BCPS Lighthouse Schools. The changes have been so exciting and the way that my library looks and feels is completely different from the last 2 years – from furniture, management, technology integration, and the circulation of materials (just to name a few!). Well with all this change, great things have come and I am looking for more ways to improve the library experience for all the RFES students. With that in mind, the opportunity came around for me to visit Sandy Bixby’s library. I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to talk with her about the organization of her collection! From the very beginning, I felt the urge to run over and start browsing books. The student friendly signs, interactive props, and “undeweyed” shelves made it so easy for me to find books in different genres. I immediately started searching for fairy tales and pets, topics I had just finished talking about with the kindergartners that day! I loved the idea of students being able to find books based on interest – with biographies, science, social studies, and literature all being merged in to “genred” areas. I thought about the excitement the kids would feel looking through ocean books, unexpectedly stumbling upon distinguished ocean explorer biographies to share with families. I couldn’t help but see how circulation statistics could only go up and students could find so many books that they never knew existed! Additionally, with each moment there, I felt increasingly excited about the possibility of shelving books so much faster too –whew! I left the visit feeling a sense of awe for the amount of work that was put in to create such a student-centered collection. I also left asking myself – where and when can I start!?!? I may have to get a cup of coffee before I answer those questions just yet, but once the caffeine hits – let the fun begin! Thanks Sandy for an AMAZING experience!

Guest Blogger - Cindy Sexton

Yesterday I had a visitor!  Isn't it nice when you have the opportunity to talk with and share with your peers? I had such a nice visit.  It can get lonely being the only LMS in a building.  Anyway, as promised, here is Cindy's guest blog post.  Thanks again Cindy!

When I heard that Sandy had ‘un-Deweyed’ Edgemere’s library my mind was kind of boggled. Who doesn’t have their library in Dewey order? (Other than Library of Congress, what other system is there?) I mean, even when I went to Greece two summers ago I visited their National Library and spoke with the librarians there about how they catalog books and they use Dewey!

I had tons of questions for Sandy. Who picked the categories? How are books in Destiny? Do you mix fiction and nonfiction subjects together? What about books that have two main subjects? How did you decide where to put them? How do students know where to look for them? What are the positives? What are the negatives? I knew I had to see the library and talk to Sandy. So we found a day and I went to explore the library and ask my questions.

I had some time to walk around the library while Sandy did bus duty. I looked at the categories within the fiction and nonfiction sections. I looked at categories within categories. I feel like most of the nonfiction generally followed Dewey guidelines but with some awesome exceptions (space books with books about space shuttles and also biographies about astronauts – genius!). I asked Sandy how students found the books and she explained how she taught it to the students. It really seems like an awesome system and one that would definitively get some of those books that are never borrowed, out in the open and into the hands of students.  Sandy shared that even the teachers are now more aware of the books in her collection. (We can tell them about the books, show them how to use Destiny, pitch our books, the databases, the ebooks...but it seems that Sandy’s new system really let teachers see what is there). Sandy also shared how seeing the books in these new categories (supernatural, for example, let her realize just by looking at the shelves where she needed to focus when ordering books). Genius!

I left with the idea that I need to try this with my fiction section to start. I personally love fiction books and feel as though that area is under utilized in my library. So many times students will ask me ‘Where are the mystery books?’ and I will tell them to do a Destiny search for ‘mystery’ and we’ll locate the authors etc etc. (Put your own subject in there, we all have those topics that students just can’t get enough of!) Sandy’s un-Deweying puts these kinds of common subjects together allowing students to peruse the titles and then select ones that are most appealing. After a thorough weeding I plan to begin to make this change in the library at Villa Cresta. I can’t believe it will be anything but successful. My kudos to Sandy for undertaking this huge task –it is clearly what is best for students. Also, many thanks Sandy for sharing your insights and your time.