ASRT Meeting Minutes
Thursday, November 19, 2024
TOPIC: COLLECTION BROWSEABILITY, WAYFINDING, ORGANIZATION TIPS, DISPLAY TIPS FOR BOOSTING CIRCULATION AND CREATING A BETTER USER EXPERIENCE
Attendees:
Shannon, Hoover
Melanie, Hoover
Rachel, Botanical Gardens
Charlie, North Birmingham
Gelenda, Southside
Melissa, Homewood
Connie, Wylam
Tamara, Irondale
Discussing ways to make the user better able to find/discover materials and services. This could be through special displays, signage, genre stickers, shelf talkers, and an open floor plan allowing patrons to have easy access and a sense of flow throughout the library. If you, not in attendance, have ideas or want to share your vision, please post on the blog or on the ASRT FB page.
One unique view is from the Bham Botanical Gardens Library. Practically their entire collection is made up of the same call numbers! How do you make it browseable and items easy to find? Rachel uses genre stickers to further subdivide and classify different types of gardening and different types of horticultural books.
A lot of the research says libraries should be arranged more like bookstores to maximize the marketing potential. My opinion is that the Dewey system is a great way to organize but I do see the need to draw attention. We have subdivided our nonfiction books like crafting and holiday books, pets or poetry all put together and genrefied for better browsing.
North Birmingham has new arrivals at front with rotating seasonal books, as does Hoover among others. But it is ESSENTIAL that displays must be kept current, full, and attractive! There are also opportunities to highlight things in the collection that are not highly circulated in an attempt to bring them to light. Sometimes our Horror collection is spread over our Mystery or Science Fiction or regular fiction collections, but if you do a display, you can pull little known horror authors together. You can also do displays that capitalize on one books popularity (have you seen BookTok videos?) such as “While you are waiting for The Women by Kristin Hannah, Try these books…” People do get tired of reading all the same old thing (Pattersonitis?) so readalikes for a display can be made.
Melanie talked about our readers advisory bookshelf, we have a different topic or award on each shelf, such as Pulitzer or Nebula Award winners or Celebrity Book Clubs or Winter/Cozy reads, along with specific selections picked out by staff members. (This shelf is constantly being filled, as it also has all of our fiction genre bookmarks too.) Her next one will probably be cozy scifi/fantasy for those that want a more gentle entry into scifi. Another one that has been popular in our mystery room is “rural noir” – more gritty and real, if you will.
Exploring sub-genres has led us to attempt to relabel or rethink the spines on our books. We are trying at Hoover to make the spine labels more uniform throughout the building. Some of the branches have very little control over how the spine label itself presents, but genre labels or utilizing colored stickers might be a way to sub-divide a very crowded shelf. I appreciate the libraries that have a longer cutter on the spine label for the author’s last name or a longer call number for nonfiction.
Melissa stated that their teen librarian at Homewood has, for instance, added an extra genre label to their manga collection to help in selection: horror or slice of life or fantasy, all to help the teens discern which manga is better suited to their taste. This can be done everywhere in the collection. However, a genre sticker might be appropriate now but then become passé to another generation, such as “New Adult” – not so popular anymore. Or the “African-American” labels – are they still okay or are we “silo-ing” instead of making more accessible?
We now have a “Materials Management Department” at Hoover and they are reexamining processes and streamlining a lot. Melanie at Hoover, who works in the new dept, said she has strong opinions on spine labels and is trying to champion a new way to display, especially within the Fiction section. Colored labels are great for shelvers but patrons don’t know what they mean. Adding something in the spine label will alert the patron. This could be, by Mel’s example, a way to give a series number for mystery series and maybe adding the character name, such as the example below:
F Area
(Fiction/YA/Nonfiction/etc.)
MYSTERY Genre
GRI Author cutter
Galloway Series
V. 1 Volume Number
This would be book one in the Theresa Galloway mysteries, which is Somebody Else’s Child.
Charles was equally annoyed that publishers don’t make series order more clear inside the book. Some list the latest book to be published first, some do it the other way around. Then, do we shelve them by series order or by book title? Tradition says by author, then book title. We should all avail ourselves of FANTASTICFICTION.org to keep series order consistent (and it prints out nicely for patrons.)
Gelenda pointed out that they usually have to direct changes to the BPL Catalog/Acquisitions Department downtown but signage and displays are done locally. They are able to feature books that way.
We used to use these plastic “shelf talkers” that hung over the shelves and you could insert a piece of paper or cardstock that had, for example, series order listing titles or something helpful like “did you know this author also writes Mysteries?” – something to help the patron. Now, we could also utilize QR codes to drive those in the collection to author videos or a series list. Here’s a link to the kind we used: https://www.displaysandholders.com/product/81-2x11-shelf-talker.html. This is sometimes in the way when shelving books, but patrons really appreciate the added help. You could also use them for readalikes for major authors too. (Just for fun, I’m including a link that E. Swift sent out from TeachingBooks about the “printable shelf talkers” utilizing QR codes: https://school.teachingbooks.net/show.cgi?f=Bookmarked_November2024
Create your own QR codes through Canva or use a free website like https://www.qr-code-generator.com/
Melissa, who has been at Homewood a little over a year, said that they have gone back retroactively and added an extra label to include series title and number. Oh, and she’s looking for innovative ways to shelve/organize COMICS!! Any suggestions for her?
In our Nonfiction department, they already subdivide genres using the spine label. For instance, all the painting books have that on the spine label, then further listed as, “abstract”, then further, “flowers” for instance. This could really help those patrons that just will not ask for help. Within cookbooks, there is a line for “Juicing” or “Air Fryer”, etc. for making them more distinctive.
An assistant once told me that the people using the large print collection needed a bigger font on their spine labels because they were in large print for a reason. Easy fix, we changed all spine labels to a font consistent with the size of large print books! Suggestions can often come from your shelfing staff or those on the floor organizing daily – pay attention! If we see patrons having trouble using the very bottom shelf and we can, maybe don’t use the bottom or tippy top shelves? It’s not always possible but it is a small thing that can help a lot of patrons. Charlie pointed out the value of putting board books on the lowest shelves so that the toddlers can actually get to them!
I did get an email from Maura Davies, formerly of Trussville Library, saying that she visited South Huntsville PL and got a tour from the branch manager Patsy Ducote. The library opened about 3 years ago and they have genrefied shelving throughout their library. If anyone is interested in learning more, she (Patsy) might be a good person to contact.
Tamara at Irondale – they are in the midst of building a new library. They are so busy with the move and change but are trying to think ahead about how the library is organized and what seems to have too much or too little space for growth. She mentioned Library IQ, which is a platform for analyzing library data. For other members, tools like Decision Center should be used frequently to keep your collection up-to-date and weeded properly. For those that *don’t* use Decision Center tools, please look into a class or talk to Elizabeth Swift to get more information.
To view the meeting recording (and there is stuff I did not document but not all of its useful!):
Our next meeting will be the Addiction Prevention Workshop on Thursday, January 16th at the Hoover Library starting at 10 am. The event will be livestreamed but not recorded. Please ask your managers and then register here: https://hoover.libnet.info/event/12314424. The APC will be handing out Narcan supplies at the meeting but we will arrange to get Narcan distributed to those attending virtually too. This is a very important topic that can benefit all.
Our upcoming ASRT schedule for 2025 is below. Thank you all!!!
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