[CASL-L] [EXTERNAL] Genrefication question

[Rocca, Jen]

We genrefied our fiction collection a few years back. We are a 9-12 high
school of about 900 students. I don't regret doing it but it is absolutely
an imperfect process.

How long will it take? The physical moving of books and updating the
catalog is doable for a single person over the course of, say, a week. If
they know what they're doing it can go pretty fast. The harder part is
choosing the genres. We, as librarians, needed to identify the genres; then
our clerk did the physical moving work over the summer. Genres are
frequently not cut and dry. Is it dystopia or action? Is it mystery or
realistic fiction? If it was a book published in 1980 about a story set in
1980, is it historical fiction or realistic fiction?

We kept the call numbers the same but changed the publication of the book
in Follett. The genres we used in the end (not that this is ideal - just
the best we could do at the time):

   - action / adventure
   - historical fiction
   - humor (later deleted)
   - mystery / horror
   - realistic fiction
   - romance
   - sci-fi / dystopia / fantasy
   - sports (thinking of removing)

Each genre has a color. The color label covers the call number on the spine
and matching colored signs above the shelves indicate what section they are
in.

Many kids really like this when they're browsing. It leads to hiccups
sometimes. If a kid asks me where *Divergent* is I know it's by
Veronica Roth but do I remember the genre? (turns out I put that in
action/adventure instead of sci-fi/dystopia because the sci/fi dystopia
section is MASSIVE - so not always cut and dry)

I'd say you could start picking away at it by adding sublocations in the
catalogs now. Or just physically tagging or stacking the books by genres.
That way the physical movement can happen over the summer.

And it's ongoing. We just found The Monstrumologist in realistic fiction.
Pretty clearly horror. Sometimes the book description alone isn't enough to
determine its genre. So every new book that gets added needs a
determination.

I hope that helps. At least a little. I don't think we mastered a system
for doing it - but we did manage it so... that's something!



On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 9:18 AM Cyndi Hansard <cyndi at aya.yale.edu> wrote:

> Good morning, all.
>
> I am getting ready to genrefy my school library, and I have questions. My
> school serves grades 7-12, and we have approximately 3700 fiction
> titles/graphic novels.
>
> My first question is -- approximately how long will it take to label and
> move that many books? For the most part, they do not already have
> genre labels. My assistant is hoping to pick up some summer hours to work
> on this project, but we need to provide an idea of how many hours it might
> take. I'm thinking about 5,467,892. Maybe one of you can give me a more
> hopeful number?
>
> Also, for grades 7-12, what categories do you use? Do any of you simply
> color code the spines rather than use specific labels? For example, I'm
> thinking it would be nice to put mystery, thriller, and horror all
> together, so maybe they could all just have a green sticker with a green
> sign that clearly labels the section. Thoughts?
>
> Thank you all in advance for your help!
> Cyndi Hansard
> Parish Hill Middle/High School
> Chaplin, CT
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-- 

Jennifer Rocca (she/her)
BHS Teacher Librarian
203-775-7725 x-7775

"We are a learning community committed to fostering intellect, respect, and
integrity."
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