How to Have Fun Shelving Books in the Library
Do you want your students to have fun in the library? Have you ever thought about how to have fun shelving books? No? Okay, it might not exactly be fun to shelve books, but it’s certainly a necessity. Do you rearrange mis-shelved books in the public library? Go ahead, admit it. I do! Yes, that’s the nerdy librarian’s idea of fun. I know.
We never had trained library assistants in the elementary schools, but ironically the middle and high school libraries do (even though they have no assigned classes). Their books probably stayed nice and neat all year! Not ours. We circulated about 15,000 books a year. And if you didn’t stay on top of it, the library quickly became a hot mess! Some schools will allow teacher aides or lunch monitors to help out. Desperate librarians with no assistance draft upper elementary students to help shelve the books. As long as you can provide basic training (as they say in the army), anyone can shelve books efficiently.
Separate Fiction and Nonfiction Books
When you check books back in, separate them into fiction vs. nonfiction. I put them in two different places on my book return cart. You might want kids to help with shelving fiction, but reserve the tricky nonfiction titles for the adults. Even within fiction, consider presorting picture books, chapter books and novels. Or even set series fiction aside, if you have special racks for them.
Don’t assume that even adults know how books are shelved in a library. My brother-in-law wanted to know if all the “Alex Cross” books were under “C.” Considering that he is a fictional character, the answer would be, “No.” He needed to look under “James Patterson.” And yes, we know that James Patterson no longer writes all his own books, but he is not giving up his name on the cover (or his royalties).
Don’t Get Too Picky
Yes, librarians, I’m talking to you. Don’t get too picky about exact placement of books unless you want to ruin the fun of shelving books. Or lose your “volunteers.” For fiction, I more or less cram all the “A” authors together, all the “B” authors together, without regard to letter by letter spelling of their names. For really prolific authors, like Eric Carle, I try to group their books together. I joke with my helpers that until the Librarian of Congress pops in for a spot inspection, we’re good. For nonfiction, I don’t catalog past one or two decimal points. There are very few areas in an elementary collection where that matters. However, in something like sports, decimals matter (math teachers love this). All sports books carry the 796 Dewey number, but basketball is 796.32; football is 796.33; tennis is 796.34 and so on.
Provide Dewey Decimal System Charts
For nonfiction, provide some sort of guidance in the form of Dewey Decimal charts. Or posters on your bulletin board. I review it every year with all my students, but if you have adult helpers, it’s been a long time since they were in the third grade! I have displays on the top of my shelves, with toy cars in the car book section, flags for the country books, footballs and baseballs for the sports books, etc. It took me a couple of years to realize that the kids (and probably the adults) didn’t know the significance of these markers. Just thought they were cute. So, assume nothing! Point out the obvious.
Some libraries have abandoned the Dewey Decimal System altogether, embracing the bookstore model. Read more:
Make a Game out of It
You can have your students make a game out of shelving books. There, didn’t I tell you we’d learn how to have fun shelving books? They can sort the books right on their tables, on the book return cart, or if you’re brave, on the actual shelves. Just supervise, or you may never find that Harry Potter Number 5 ever again. The kids can play digital shelving games on the Smart Board, or on their chromebooks. I have a couple of BOOM Card decks that use a drag and drop feature. Not sure about BOOM Cards? Read more about it:
Getting Started with BOOM Cards
Buy HERE on Teachers pay Teachers
Here is a brief video on the fiction deck:
Buy HERE on Teachers pay Teachers
Here is a brief video on the nonfiction deck:
So, I hope you learned some ways to have fun shelving books in the library! It’s fun to have a system. It’s fun to be organized. It’s fun to enlist helpers. It’s fun to make it a game.
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