I’ve gone on record with regards to my skepticisim about getting rid of Dewey. I believe that before we ditch Dewey (problems and all) completely, maybe we should try better signage. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about from Sandy Kallunki, Supervisor, Children’s Dept./Adult Fiction Dept./Teen Zone, Brown County Central Library. (Reprinted with her permission.)
As part of a project for making our department more "browser friendly" for people of all ages, reading levels and languages, we are re-doing our children’s nonfiction shelf signage. We are revising our "end of range" lists (signs) to include little images in addition to dewey numbers and the subject names, and then we are putting a matching image and subject name on shelf label holders where the actual books are. So for instance, the list at the end of one set of shelves includes not just "567 Dinosaurs" but also a little picture of a dinosaur. Initial reaction from kids and adults has been very positive.
We use the "grip on" shelf label holders from Demco and it is still a bit awkward sliding books over the top part.
It has been a challenge to find images that kids and adults recognize and that are identifiable when shrunk down small. Also, we looked for non-copyrighted stuff. We are happy with most of the images that we’ve come up with, others less so.
The other tricky part is that this has forced us to look at what Dewey numbers we use to try to be more consistent where possible. For instance, rather than having Titanic books in two different places (two different call numbers), let’s put them all in one spot.
We also plan to use the shelf label holders to identify popular series and authors in our chapter books section. And we have used them in our children’s Spanish section to identify where the different types of Spanish books are–picture books as opposed to nonfiction. There the challenge is translating the terms we use into Spanish.
In response to my request to reprint her e-mail here she also added:
Our new nonfiction signs/shelf labels are actually part of a 2007 LSTA grant project (almost finished) through which we are setting up a revitalized "Parent/Teacher Center" in our Children’s Department as part of a broad-based local Community Partnership for Children. One of the objectives of the grant was to make the entire department easier to "self-navigate" for our very diverse customer base.
I’ve asked for some photos and hope to share them here in the future.
