As a manager, circulation is a big number that I have to take into account. We use it when purchasing, weeding, and making major decisions. Every year I was running our juvenile nonfiction circulation stats and they kept dropping (anywhere from 8-20% per year). Our overall circulation during the same time was not having the same drastic decreases. One year was a 3% drop, while another was a 19% increase. Things were good overall, but this section needed some attention. The hard part was that I couldn't weed it down too much as many of the books are used for school and reports. After a year of watching data, we knew that we needed to change.
Research
No big project should ever be started without some research. We looked at other big nonfiction changes around the country and talked to libraries. They were getting amazing results-some circulation was even up 20-30%!
Some links that may help you in your research include:
Decisions, Decisions
After your research, you have to decide what you are going to do and how to do it. Our challenge was that we have 3 locations-a Main Library and 2 branches. Both branches interfiled their adult and juvenile nonfiction. Whatever we chose to test out had to work for both children and adults.
We decided that a modified version of BISAC was our best bet. We went mostly with the adult subject headings, but there were a couple of children's ones that we needed to add in (ex. Fairy Tales and Folklore). There were a couple of places where we combined subjects or made up headings to suit our needs (ex. Literature). We also wanted to pare down our list to just the headings that we needed. My boss originally wanted 15, but we negotiated up to 35. If we were just reclassifying children's, we could have gone with a smaller number.
The Work
Once the decisions are all made, you are set to get to work. My boss let us hire a college student who was home for the summer to do all of our relabeling. Our ILS allows us to make bulk changes so we were able to change whatever was relabeled on a given day. This took 2 months of 1 person working 10 hours a week to change a 20,000 item collection.
Once the entire section was relabeled, it was time to move the books. If I were doing it again, I would pull a bunch of people to move them over a couple of days. It took 2 of us 3 weeks to move them all. This was also the beginning of our heavy outreach season so it wasn't the best time for a shifting project.
The Final Result
Want to see what this looks like? Each section has a sign at the beginning that identifies the section. All spine labels in this section (Science) would start with SCIENCE to help with shelving. Once in a section, the call numbers are filed by Dewey number.
We always start new sections at the top of a bay of shelves to make it easier on the customers. We also added a lot of face-outs-all of the top shelves in the nonfiction section are now face-outs.
Instead of Dewey numbers on our endcaps, we now list sections.
What Do Our Customers Think?
We've now had this new organization system in place for 4 months. We are pulling our circulation stats every 3 months to monitor how it is doing over this year. After our first quarter, juvenile nonfiction is up 18% in circulation!
It is not uncommon for us to now see kids sitting in the middle of aisles with a stack of books that they are perusing. We are seeing less nonfiction location questions from kids because they are better able to find their materials between the signage and the face-outs. I will admit that the parents are less than thrilled their first time that they have to find a juvenile nonfiction book. I get a lot of "What have you done?" After I explain that we are a trial for 1 year because the kids just were not finding the materials and that now they are, they come around. It does take some librarian time showing people how to find their items in the OPAC and what they should write down to find their items on the shelf.
The above is part of a letter from one of our local teachers telling us how much she loved the new organization. It made my day!
What's Next?
We are going to keep collecting circulation statistics through mid-September before any future decisions are made. We were a test site for this project so other departments/locations are watching to see what happens.
This is a guest post version of Hickory Dickory Dock for Nancy. She shared some pictures with me of something fun that she created in her children's department. Presenting...Hickory Dickory Dock!
This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Melissa at Mel's Desk.
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I have been doing a lot of traveling again this past spring and have taken pictures of some of my favorite library spaces and features. Some of these features would be easy to adapt in any library.
Kalamazoo Public Library-Main Branch
This year's MiKidLib was held at the Kalamazoo Public Library. They had recently done some renovations and we have already borrowed some of their ideas.
I LOVE their reference desk signage. The simple "ask here" tells kids and parents where to go for help. It is in big letters and is easy to read.
They have also added nursery rhymes above the changing tables in the kids restrooms. The cost to do this is one laminated piece of paper! On our first day back at work after the unconference, we duplicated this great idea.
Kalamazoo is currently working on sorting their picture book collection by neighborhoods. The bins were its predecessor to show that this type of thing would be popular. While we aren't ready for a neighborhood reorganization as we are in the middle of converting our nonfiction to BISAC categories, we did put out two bins on bottom shelves for "princesses" and "trains". These have been extremely popular! As of this moment, every single train picture book is checked out and we have renamed the bin "things that go". We also have bought a third bin for "dinosaurs".
MacDonald Public Library
This library is close to my home and is the workplace of Kelly at Ms. Kelly at the Library.
I love her number circles that she added going down the ramp into the kids' room. It's a great early literacy center that anyone can add with paper and book tape. Kelly blogs about it here.
I also was excited to check out her iPad setup as we are putting some into a new building. Kelly talks about her process here. I really like that the apps are organized by ECRR2 categories!
Bloomfield Township Public Library
I attend our Special Needs Roundtable at BTPL and love to check out what they are doing while I am there.
Here you can see their nonfiction organized with faceouts on all of the top shelves. I really like this as it helps with the browsing users. Plus, it looks awesome! We are in the middle of a nonfiction redo (BISAC) and as we sort our categories at the end of summer, we will be organizing our section in a similar fashion.
Mission Viejo Public Library
MVPL is in California and I had originally stopped by to check out their Family Place offerings as we are just starting the process. Below are some neat things that I saw.
As you enter the library, there is a window in the lobby. At the top of the window is the mission statement. How many libraries show off their mission statements in a really obvious place like this? I love it! Other text on the window are book-related quotes.
The adult reference desk has "ask here" above the desk. Once again, I love how easy it is to locate help. The simple "ask here" makes the desk staff seem more approachable.
As you enter a section of the children's area, these fossils are on the wall. I really like the sensory aspect of it as some are raised and some are embedded. Trust me, just like a kid, I was touching everything.
San Diego Public Library-Main Branch
If you are ever in Southern California, it is definitely worth a trip to visit the San Diego Public Library. It is right downtown, within walking distance of Petco Park (I am a baseball fan!).
As you walk along the sidewalk, various Dr. Seuss silhouettes are in the windows of the children's room. Since Dr. Seuss lived just north of San Diego in La Jolla, this makes sense.
Following the Dr. Seuss theme, there are Seuss murals covering almost all of the walls in the children's room. It is so much fun to see what is there!
The display case on one of the endcaps highlights local authors. It almost looks like a program in conjunction with the schools. I know that our local schools run a yearly writing program called Young Authors. How cool would it be if they could display their books in the local library???
Also from a school perspective, there is a high school run from two floors of the library building! That would make it really easy to get the librarians involved in database training and teaching teens how to use the library.
That's all for now. I will highlight more travels as I take more pictures. If you like this kind of thing, you may also want to check out my 2014 edition.
This past spring I have been doing a lot of traveling for meetings and conferences. Of course, I always stop in at local libraries as there are always neat ideas that I can "borrow" for my own workplace. For those who don't get to travel much or just love looking at library spaces, here are some pictures from my travels.
Indianapolis Public Library
If you haven't ever been to the Central Library location of the Indianapolis Public Library, it is definitely a destination spot. Seriously, your eyes will glaze over in wonder as you look around. My only gripe about the building was that there was no teen space. The children's area has a high tech feel.
They run a QR code scavenger hunt throughout the department. How cool is that?!? While I can't invest in these stations like they have, I can definitely make my own QR code hunt.
In their juvenile nonfiction area, they have black-and-white pictures above the shelving bays to show off what is there. I really like this, especially for younger kids who can't read yet. Plus, we all know that Dewey is a foreign language to most people. Pictures really do help! While our shelving ranges are too tall to do something like this, it may be possible to add pictures to the endcaps.
This is probably the neatest part about the whole library. They have a green screen! Kids (and adults!) can predict the weather or drive a racecar. There is raised seating in this area and they actually do all of their story times here! When I asked about how that would work, they said that they do a normal story time where the presenter sits up front. Then during the last 10 minutes or so, kids could come up and play with the green screen. It is a great way to add technology to every story time!
Willard Public Library-Battle Creek
The Willard Public Library in Battle Creek, MI does a fantastic job creating a bookstore feel as you wander through the displays. They use multiple copies and faceouts, which promotes circulation.
I hadn't seen a library break out their seasonal books before and I thought this was a neat concept (excuse the bad picture). We all know that spring, summer, fall, and winter books tend to only circulate during their given season. This tends to hurt circulation when comparing them to the rest of the collection. I really liked this idea, plus the display space on the tops of the shelves.
Bloomfield Township Public Library
I will be honest-as a children's librarian I "borrow" a lot of ideas from this library. They have a lot of specialized collections that we are just starting (or enhancing) at my library, including special needs and parent/teacher collections If you haven't been there before, you definitely need to stop by if you are in Metro Detroit.
I love the built-in shelves on all of the endcaps throughout their children's area. This makes it easy to pull out and highlight various books. Plus, kids can see what is in that area!
This is their story time room. I really liked the curved feel to the room as it makes it easier for everybody to see the presenter. Ours is a square and it is hard to find a good place to set up the flannelboard and the cd player for easy access and so everybody can see.
Harper Woods Public Library
This is a smaller library that I just visited this past week. They recently went through a renovation and really made good use of their space.
While the children's area is downstairs, they have clear signage so you can identify the department. Plus, the children's reference desk is right when you come down the stairs.
No space in this building was wasted. Under the stairs are these great blobby holes that are perfect reading nooks. Plus, they bring color into the children's area.
That's all that I have for now. I will be back the next time I get a round of pictures!
