It’s been almost a whole school year since I hit the “Import Titles” button and replaced ALL of my Dewey nonfiction MARC records with whole number Dewey call numbers, without decimals. It was a bit daunting making such a wildly revolutionary decision. Thanks to some VERY dedicated volunteers, countless hours spent re-stickering spine labels, and new, large, and colorful signs, however, I honestly think that the change has made our nonfiction section more accessible to students and faculty.
Here are some of my discoveries and reflections…
It took almost a full school year to re-sticker everything to Whole Number Dewey…
…and that was with a part-time assistant and a few fantastic volunteers spending every non-shelving moment on this project (without working in the summer). Between classes and after school, we were picking up the stack of spine labels to change part of a shelf or the books that were returned that day. It’s tedious and time-consuming, no doubt about it. It’s also worth it!
Once we got started, I was taking a harder look at where books were cataloged…
I questioned if a particular book or section of books really belonged there (from a 7-year-old’s perspective). It was this reflection that prompted me to manually change the pets from 636 to 597-599, because they are ANIMALS after all. Why catalogers still put them with the farming books is beyond me!
Knowing your collection and your students is crucial.
Know what’s popular, and what needs signage. Think about how your students think and where a child would most likely look for a particular book. Then put it in that section.
Having a whole number in the online catalog and decimals on the actual spine label DID NOT significantly affect how students found books.
This pleasant surprise led me to an interesting conclusion: Students weren’t paying attention to the parts of the call number they can’t see on the printed label anyway…like the decimal wrapped around the spine. They just look at the 3 numbers they can see on the spine, and then just look around that area. When students got stuck trying to find a shelf that had moved (like the pets), they just asked a friend or me for help.
Signage is SO important!
It needs to be “just-in-time” to help students find what they need whether they are searching for a specific number or just browsing/aimlessly wandering. Signage is how I keep the 599’s from becoming one huge section with monkeys, bears, and kangaroos inter-filed. I just added a few magazine file boxes and added the number 599 and different images to each. The same for 796 with the most popular sports, though we also found adding a sports ball sticker to the spine helps too. (See image above.)
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Weeding!
If you use magazine boxes for shelf signage (available in my shop if you’re interested), you need to know that the boxes take up a good amount of space on the shelf.Â
So weed your collection. Use a collection analysis tool like the Percentage Relative Use (PRU) spreadsheet below to analyze what you have and what you need.Â
Remember, we are competing with video games for students’ attention. If a book (or its cover) is over 15 years old and doesn’t stack up, get rid of it! For my collection, if a book hasn’t been checked out in the past 10 years, I made sure there was a really good reason to keep it, or I made plans to replace it with updated cover art.
Update 2023: After MANY requests to make a smaller version that didn’t take up so much width space on the shelf, I finally made the “slim” version above. You can also use both the wide and slim versions together from the Shelf Signs Bundle to add easy-to-use signs now as you weed your library collection.
The Results:
I just finished adding the last of the magazine file box signage to our shelves this week, and I’ve VERY happy with how they look.Â
So I hope this post was helpful if you are thinking of changing your school library’s organization. Have you ever altered the traditional Dewey Decimal System to meet young students’ needs? Share in the comments!Â
PRU is an excellent statistical way to analyze the size of the collection in terms of its use. It answers the question – Do I have a large enough collection to meet the needs of my users (as evidenced in circulation)? It is so often misunderstood or inaccurately calculated. For it to be accurate, you must use a full school year of data comparing the size of the collection at the end of a school year with the circulation at the end of a full school year. This is because units of study (and thus when library resources are used and circulated) follow the sequence of the curriculum. So to capture all uses of library materials that are used to meet the school’s curriculum and students needs, you need a full school year of data. PRU is based on the premise that previous usage (last year’s) predicts future usage. Not always true, but a good predictor. I hope you try the PRU spreadsheet Collette shared. It is very interesting and often uncovers smaller areas/subjects of the collection that are heavily used that the librarian may not have recognized. For deeper analysis and lovers of statistics, you can expand the spreadsheet to calculate PRU by Dewey tens.
I have been toying with the idea of “ditching dewey” for a while now. I was looking at the metis system but I’m liking this idea as a compromise between the two. My students are just struggling with finding books independently! I’ve thought about doing some subject categories in my early readers as a pilot because I am constantly getting those subject related requests from my students. We may try to pull out all the “princess” or “truck” books from all area and put them together on the shelf for a few weeks at a time just to see how kids react. I’m glad to see a new version of this change!
Princess books is one that I’ve actually separated from the rest of the fairy tales/folktales because I get so many requests. Of course my definition of “princess” is pretty broad, but I just put a “fairy tale” sticker on it with a princess/tower image to identify them from the rest of the folktales/fairy tales.
If you look through my earlier “How to Be Brave” posts, I also do something similar with my “easy nonfiction” section. They are mostly “Rookie Readers” that are aimed at K-1 students, and they are VERY popular.
Jenahlee–I “inherited” a library that already had special sections for princess, Draw 50, Star Wars, and I Spy books–and they are heavily used on a daily basis! We also have a separate shelf for the DK Eyewitness and dog breed series of books.
In the last library I worked in, there were similar sections. I changed them up every few months like a display, and it did save some time and sanity.
I just bought this set on TPT from you and I’m wondering something. Your photo above shows 599. Are there more signs that I need to buy because the set only came with 100s,200s, 300s, etc. I didn’t see 599 or any other numbers….just the hundreds.
An update is on the way with ALL of the Dewey numbers I used. Sorry for the confusion and the wait! Once I reupload the files, you’ll be able to download the Dewey signs for popular elementary topics.
Thanks!!! could you please email me when you have the update! 🙂 [email address removed to protect commenter privacy]
Of course! I just updated the file on TpT, so you should be able to download the updated product shortly.
I love this! Thank you…will go prder it on TpT this weekend. Is one magazine holder better than another? Do they tend to tip over when a child removes a book or books near it? Thanks!
I have a link in the product to the ones I ordered when my supply of leftovers ran out. They are just normal ones from Demco, but the thicker the plastic, the better. Very occasionally they tip over, but I’ve solved this by putting a metal book end to the left or right of the magazine file boxes to keep the books standing up straight.
I have two nonfiction sections, one for lower and one for upper and I have tubs for the most popular books. A tub for cats and a tub for dogs, one for football, one for basketball. It’s helped but I’m definitely thinking of going farther and going with whole number Dewey. I definitely think it would help the 900’s. I’m also thinking of “genrefying” the fiction section, we’ll see what my principal says. It just makes sense, since grade 3-5 all study genre. Wow!! I might have a very busy school year!!! Thanks for this post!
Thanks for reading! I’ve thought of doing tubs for the series first chapter books too. My “easy nonfiction” section has some basic categories like health, animals, science, biographies, careers, and geography.
Yes!!! I have for a couple years now!! I also changed the system and just use the whole number then alphabetize. I always tell students stop at the dot then ABC order. This really worked, plus it is easier to shelve. It just gets too complicated after the dot.
I agree! After 2 years of Whole Number Dewey and re-stickering everything, I don’t regret the changes at all! I have more students browsing and helping each other find books too, so that helps me focus on helping the “tough customers” find books.
Hi Mrs J,
Did you remove the decimal from the online cataloging system, or just leave them in there?
Hi Diana! Yes, I actually paid Mackin to do it for me as a “special cataloging project.” I’ve heard from other teacher-librarians that it can be done both ways, but if you keep them, you’ll have to teach your students to ignore anything after the decimal point in your catalog.
I want to ditch the Dewey and still just feel so overwhelmed. I want to start with my non-fiction as you did. How did you set up future library processing when ordering books. I have Destiny and order mainly from Titlewave and Permabound?
Hi Donna!
This is as easy as an email or phone call to your book vendors. Sometimes you can even do it by logging into your online account. You probably already have a “cutoff” decimal for Dewey; for instance, it might be no more than 2 decimal places. When you contact your vendor, you just tell them to change it to 0 decimals. Then all of your future orders are done for you. I hope that helps, and please reach out through the Contact page if I can help further.
Collette J. / Mrs. J in the Library
This might seem like a simple question, but what do you use to weigh down your magazine boxes? I tried using books that were withdrawn from our collection, but some are still tilted over (which drives me crazy). Tell me there’s some magical way to get them to stand up straight??
And thank you! I love this resource!!
Hello Kelley!
This is a great question. If you look on the pictures in this post, you’ll see that I keep most of the magazine file boxes sandwiched between the side of the shelf and the books. Sometimes, however, I pull a section to the right side of a shelf and then the file box goes between a metal book end and the books. It’s not perfect, especially in a very popular section where books are heavily circulated…but it definitely helps.
Hi!
Ok, I am a middle school librarian and LOVE this idea…however my current inventory definetly would need me to “figure” out what number the book SHOULD be in. (some sports books are in autobiography, some are in football, ect…) I see you used Mackin. I am not familiar with them…and when I went to the website and signed up with them…I still dont see where that particular resource is. Can you enlighten me on that process??
Thanks!
Kodi C.
Hi Kodi!
Thanks for the comment and great points. First, I don’t think you need to figure out or change to the “correct” Dewey number. In fact, the art/science of cataloging shows us that there isn’t really a perfect Dewey number for any given book. If you have a dedicated biography section like I did, with B as the call number prefix, you might consider just leaving the biographies where they are, including sports figures. I only did whole numbers with the books that were already cataloged with a Dewey number, so I could have just blacked out the decimals with a permanent marker and moved on from there.
However, librarians who fully genrefy their libraries would say that sports celebrity biographies belong in the same section as the sports teams books and how-to-play sport books. It’s really a matter of opinion, and what works best for your students, your individual library and/or your school district.
One of the reasons I kept Dewey and didn’t genrefy was because students in our district often moved between our elementary schools and 2 middle schools. Also, the other librarians at the time were absolutely against the idea of Whole Number Dewey or genrefying, and I wanted to stay consistent across our district and public libraries. Since they all used Dewey, I just simplified it so the number coinciding with the topic would be the same across the district. But that’s just my community and my district. Yours might be different.
As for your 2nd question, I don’t think Mackin advertises the service, and I contacted them directly to ask about it. They called it a Special Cataloging Service, but if you reach out to them or talk to your Mackin rep., I’m guessing they will put you in touch with the right people and give you a quote. Here’s their contact link: https://home.mackin.com/contact/
Thanks!