[LM_NET] Reorganizing Fiction by Genre Rewind

[Shonda Brisco <sbrisco@FWCDS.ORG>]

Okay, now obviously you didn't see the big GRIN that I attached to my email (along 
with the wink and the nod---which means that I DON'T think we should be dividing 
the fiction into smaller groups).

I wrote an article about this insanity for LMC entitled "From Dewey to Dalton" 
which describes the insanity of trying to find something in the bookstore when you 
search by genres.  I wandered around the store for over two hours looking for a few 
titles that IF I had a card catalog and a well-defined fiction / non-fiction area, 
I would easily know where to start my search and locate my materials.  In fact, the 
experience allowed me to become SO familiar with where things WERE NOT, that I did 
see a few things that I wasn't looking for and during my miserable search, I was 
able to help a customer who needed a book---that had been pulled out for a display 
that was tucked in an area where it probably shouldn't have been.

My suggestion?  If you think that searching for a book in a bookstore is the best 
way to find materials, go into a NEW bookstore and try to find four or five 
titles---make two of them classic titles and the others either a recently released 
or just released title in the past two or three years.  Then begin searching 
without the assistance of a store clerk or their computers.  (Trying to decide 
where those non-genre books might be located is even tougher....)  

I think the experience is exhausting and frustrating--maybe because I "know too 
much" about where things "should be" and when they aren't, it is frustrating!  

And by the way...I don't think people go to the bookstores to enjoy the "looking 
for the book" experience....they go to the bookstore BECAUSE THEY HAVE NEW BOOKS!!
They also allow people to sit, drink coffee, have snacks, listen to music, and read 
their NEW BOOKS!  (They have to offer something after the madness of the seaching 
experience....perhaps, we just need to: 1) buy LOTS of new books, 2) allow drinks 
and snacks in one area of the library, 3) play relaxing music in the background 
(and even offer those musical selections as possible "check-outs" at the 
circulation desk), and 4) offer small groups of displays of genre books that can be 
easily labeled and then located when they are placed back on the shelves later.

There are lots of ideas to take from the bookstore concept....the arrangement is 
just NOT IT.

My opinion only...

~Shonda


Shonda Brisco, MLIS
US / Technology Librarian
Fort Worth Country Day School
Fort Worth, TX
sbrisco@fwcds.org
http://www.fwcds.org/campus/libraries/default.asp

http://webpages.charter.net/sbrisco/index.html

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