School library shelving ideas

Last week I wrote about how our elementary library collection is going through a major transformation. In the post, We Spiced Up The Shelves....And Ditched The Dewey, I told all about how we have moved away from being organized by the Dewey Decimal System to a nonfiction collection organized by subjects. So far we have the nonfiction collection organized into 90 different subjects and subtopics. You can see the list in the NEW Van Meter Library Nonfiction Arrangement Google Doc. Please feel…

School library book displays can brighten up your library and entice your readers to take a look at some new books, or try some overlooked titles. Get ideas for fun and easy elementary library book displays here! #thetrappedlibrarian #schoollibrary

It's been nearly two years since my amazing aide and I started genre-fying our library's fiction section. While it was a TON of work, we have never regretted it. Since then, I have helped guide other area librarians in their own genre-fication projects and continue to spread the word about this wonderful new way to help readers find the books they love.

All of my signage is freely available below. You may use it! You may not sell it or share it as your own. Be cool, ok? :) Side Quest! **While I provide my signage, indeed everyting on the blog, for…

Whole Number Dewey is common sense cataloging for elementary school libraries and children's sections of public libraries.

Wait...What? You May Ask...What is Genrification? Let me tell you all about it! Genrifying a library means that the books are reorganized by genre (French word for category), and then by the author's last name. Traditionally they are organized by author's last name without concern for the genre. (I focused on the the fiction section with 4000 books, though some librarians genrify both fiction and nonfiction.) Genrification is also called the "bookstore model" because it is the way most book…

I can hardly believe that I completed our high school’s genrefication project three years ago already! Although it isn’t exactly correct to say that I “completed” it three y…

The best part of my job is being able to visit with librarians and talk with them about anything from programs to books and how I can help. One of the benefits of visiting them is seeing the …

I just finished genre-fying our high school library! I know a lot of librarians struggle with the “should I or shouldn’t I?” conundrum when it comes to genre-fication. I thought I…

Something really big has been happening in the Van Meter School Elementary Library over the last few months. We are always doing things within our library, school, and community to get our young people reading, learning, thinking, collaborating, and creating. One of the ways that we can encourage all of these things within the library is to take a look around and see what changes we can make. I looked at the way our collection was organized, where and how our students browsed in the library…