Physical and Digital Nonfiction Revamp

Teaching and managing a school library during a pandemic presents many challenges and opportunities.  At the top of my list of concerns was finding ways to continue to get books in the hands of students.  When thinking about this, I had to identify barriers to access that exist in both the physical and digital space.

As far as the fiction and biography sections are concerned, I believe that the current arrangement works well for access.  In previous years, I was able to spend time "genrefying" both of these areas.  Genrefication is the process of moving a library's collection into topic/subject areas, rather than adhering to other traditional organizational structures.  These sections are clearly labeled in the physical library.  The signage and multicolored spine labels help to draw students' attention to the sections which pique their interest.  In the digital library catalog, topic buttons exist for each fiction and biography genre.  This makes it easy to narrow down digital library searches to areas of interest.  This has been particularly important as COVID restrictions have limited access to the physical shelves.  Students have relied heavily on the library catalog to place orders for books from our library.

Why Revamp Nonfiction?
It was becoming clear that the physical and digital access to the nonfiction area was cause for concern.  Although the shelves were organized according to Dewey classification, this alone wasn't cutting it for ease of resource access.  Here's a short list of some of the gripes I had with the old layout of the physical section:

• The 796 sports area was a mess.  Some Dewey numbers reached 3 or 4 decimal places, and different sports were interspersed throughout the area.  This made it hard to easily locate books on specific sports.

• Similar issues existed in the animals section.  Inconsistent Dewey decimal places made it difficult to pinpoint areas where you could find the animal you were interested in reading about.

• The mythology area did not clearly denote different mythologies from areas of the world.  This caused some trouble when students were looking for books specifically on Greek mythology for a sixth grade project.

The labels at the top of each shelf were helpful,
but there was a better way to organize.

Students could get to the general area of interest,
but finding specific titles still posed some difficulty.

The digital access to nonfiction books also posed some issues.  Although students could search by keyword or topic for nonfiction titles, this could sometimes be hit or miss.  Incomplete or brief records might not contain the search terms students would be looking for.  Misspellings when searching the library catalog could result in a lack of hits.  It would be helpful to have digital subject buttons for nonfiction, just like what is found in the catalog for fiction and biographies.

Gathering Inspiration

Although fiction genrefication is gaining in popularity, it is less likely to find school libraries with flexibly-cataloged nonfiction sections.  In our WNY region, I gained inspiration from hearing about the nonfiction changes that Kristin Frauenhofer made to the Maryvale Primary library.  While at the 2019 Fall Sharing Conference (a yearly event from the School Librarians' Association of WNY), Melissa Flynn discussed her nonfiction genrefication project at the Forest Elementary library in the Williamsville Central District.  Melissa generously shared her document with the updated Dewey sections, including some cutter numbers which corresponded to particular subtopics within each numbered section.  These examples were extremely helpful!

Getting Started

With a nonfiction section of close to 3,500 books, I knew that a revamp would be both time and labor intensive.  When my school district went fully remote this winter, the opportunity to get started on this project presented itself.  Patty Lebrenz from the Erie 1 BOCES Library Automation Team answered some of my initial questions and helped me download an Excel spreadsheet of the library's nonfiction area.

While at home and not tending to the physical library, I had time in between scheduled virtual classes to work within the Excel spreadsheet.  The first step involved moving items to be weeded into a separate tab in the file.  I would suggest this as step one anytime a genrefication project is underway!  It doesn't make sense to re-catalog and label materials that will just end up being deselected.  My spreadsheet showed me the copyright year, number of checkouts, and other useful data points.  When choosing material to deselect, I took into account the number of checkouts, age of the materials, presence of outdated information, and if there were multiple copies which were no longer needed.  After this process was completed, I designated about 300 books for deselection.

Deciding on Categories

Probably the most excruciating part of this whole process was deciding on the categories and new Dewey designations.  Although Melissa Flynn's document was a big help, her elementary library did not house books on some of the middle school topics covered in my library's collection.  When deciding on the categories I would use, I thought about the logical flow of the collection, students' browsing habits/previous topic requests, and longstanding classroom projects.  All of these factors helped guide me into category decisions that (I hope!) will translate into more nonfiction checkouts and an easier time finding information.

Once the categories were set, I was able to go back into the spreadsheet to denote the updates.  New columns for category and updated call number were added.  Once I added this information, I had the pieces I needed to create new spine labels and make the needed updates to the books' records.

A view of the spreadsheet.  When I created the new spine label, I changed the cell to blue.

Revamp Underway

Once we returned to teaching in the school building once again, I was able to utilize the spreadsheet to make the changes needed to both the physical space and the library catalog.  I first went through and placed the deselected books on a cart.  With those titles out of the way, I could see the amount of books left to move, relabel, and recatalog.

Little by little, I worked in between classes to update each book within the nonfiction section.  I would grab a cartful of books and replace its spine label with an updated one.  While I had each book in my hand, I went into the library catalog and updated both its sublocation and copy category to reflect the topic I had chosen for that book.  This update would come into play later when changes are made to the look of the library catalog.  Once the books were labeled and cataloged, they were returned to the shelves.  Each shelf now houses one distinct topic (or multiple topics that are similar in nature).  This took a lot of reorganizing, and a LOT of time.  It took four months to complete this part of the process.

Updated Signage

While I liked that each large shelving unit had category labels, I thought that there could be an even better way to denote the subject areas within nonfiction.  Instead of each shelf displaying the Dewey number, it now displays the topics found on each distinct shelf.  The tops of the shelving units now displays the Dewey range.  This makes it possible to find books by Dewey number, or simply by browsing by topic.  The signs were created for free using Canva.  This signage matches the templates used for the fiction and biography sections, so this adds to the overall cohesiveness of the library space.

Topic signage will be displayed on each shelf.

The tops of the shelving units will display the Dewey range for that area.

SLAWNY Grant

As supplies needed for this project were expensive, I was lucky enough to receive a generous $300.00 grant from the School Librarians' Association of Western New York.  This grant helped to defray the costs of label protectors and new caps for each shelf.  I'm very appreciative for the assistance with this project!  It would not have been completed this year without the financial help from SLAWNY.

Digital Updates

The addition of a copy category and sublocation will eventually make it possible to update the Destiny Discover interface with an added feature of topic buttons for students.  Right now, Destiny does not allow for flexibility in the topic ribbon within Discover.  If this is updated, my plan will be to have topic ribbons for each hundreds Dewey range, then specific buttons for the topics contained in this range.  For right now, I'm deciding on the major topics I want to add in the space Destiny provides.  I will be taking some notes on student browsing habits in order to see which nonfiction areas generate the most foot traffic!  These topics will be the best choices for the digital shortcuts.

The current topics in Destiny Discover.
I'll be adding nonfiction buttons based on student browsing habits.

Physical Updates

I am overjoyed with how the nonfiction section looks now!  While shifting the collection, I was able to solve some issues that had been bothering me.  First, I was able to make sure that there was space left on the ends of shelves in order to display books.  While shifting, I also changed the height of each shelf.  Now, no books are on their sides.  All of the spines are visible.  Some books that were previously overlooked might now get checked out.

Next Steps

Although the physical space is ironed out for now, I know that changes may need to be made to the collection moving forward.  The ability to visualize the amount of books available for each topic gives me ideas for future collection development efforts.  As teachers add and delete classroom projects, I might need to alter topics and spine labels.  I'll also be on the lookout for topic areas that are confusing to students.  This will always be a work in progress, but I'm happy to make these adjustments to make the nonfiction section work better for the school community.

Many thanks to SLAWNY for their support of this project!  It's wonderful to be a part of a library organization willing to provide assistance for new ideas.