Erin the Librarian: #genrefication part 2

It is done! I feel such a sense of accomplishment. My original goal was to be completed by December 1st, and here it is only October 21st and I am all done!

On Tuesday I finished color coding all of the books in my fiction section. It was really strange not doing anything genrefication related on Wednesday. That is my busy, busy day in the library and I didn't want to start the next process on a packed day. In all honesty, I really thought taking every book off the shelves and piecing it back together would take A LOT longer than it actually did. I'm actually in shock that it only took 1 day. Thursdays are my really light days in the library. I only have 3 scheduled classes plus a Preschool Storytime. Today I read two short stories and planned a quicker craft to allow for a little more time with this process.

Stay out! :)

Before storytime I blocked off the fiction section. My principal had some "CAUTION" tape leftover from our Kaboom Playground Build, so I used that to "quarantine" the fiction side of the library. I did not want the kids anywhere near the piles today. I caused quite a commotion outside of the library this morning. The library has glass walls on one side and the kids were a little alarmed by the caution tape, so I had to have my principal make an announcement that everything was OK and I was just working on a project to make the library even better. That seemed to calm everyone down.

The process begins!

I set out papers on the floor labeled with the genre. I put enough room in between each one so I would have room to stack all of the books systematically so it would make the task of putting them back on the shelf 100xs easier. I went shelf by shelf and pulled each genre alphabetically and placed them on the floor in piles according to genre. It was a big eye opener to see what my collection looks like broken down by genre. Fantasy and Realistic Fiction are my two biggest genres, and SciFi and Sports were the two genres with the least amount of books.

Carefully stacking them

At the end of the day I made a decision to stay after school for one hour because any piles left on the floor would have been at risk to toppling over. I was trying to avoid any extra work at any cost. Even giving myself an extra hour after school I still didn't believe I would accomplish getting everything back on the shelf, but I did!

I remembered that Mary said it was like putting a puzzle together. I stared with Fantasy and Realistic Fiction because those two genres had the biggest number of books to get on the shelf. I put Fantasy at the beginning of one area and Realistic Fiction at the beginning of my other shelving area. Then I puzzled in the rest of the categories according to size. Since I had done a major amount of weeding, I have some nice gaps to allow for books being returned. Also, I have two completely empty shelves which will be nice for when the collections grow each year. For now, they are a nice place to display my favorites.

Piles by genre

I plan on doing some check out analysis pre and post genrefying. However, I have a feeling it will increase. I've been talking to the classes... they noticed the addition of colored stickers on all of the books and wanted to know what was going on. I had one reluctant reader smile the biggest smile I have ever seen when I told him that his favorite genre will all be shelved together once my project was complete. I am also hopeful that those hidden gems will be a little easier to find now that all the "junk" has been weeded. 5 copies of a Bluestem or Caudill (Illinois State Award Lists) are great during that year, but many years later 1-2 copies are sufficient.