[aisle] Call Numbers

[Michelle Harris]

Keary,
I have something similar since I'm serving PreK-6th.  I have two sections
for non-fiction: regular and easy.  The spines (for example) are 636.8 Joh
or E 646.8 Joh.  E is for "Easy" or "Everyone".  The E non-fic also has a
yellow label protector.  So it is easy to see at a glance if a little kids
non-fic book gets mixed into the big kids non-fic because the yellow spine
label is obvious.

For fiction, we have 3 sections:  E for picture books (E Fic Joh)  ER for
Early Readers (ER Fic Joh).  Those Early Readers are further split with a
"red star" or "blue star" on the spine (with labels from Demco): the blue
stars are the easiest early readers...think Elephant & Piggie all the way
up to Mercy Watson.  The red stars are titles like Magic Treehouse and
Notebook of Doom...longer chapters, but still early reader. And finally we
have just plain Fiction (Fic Joh).  These are organized alphabetically
within 7 different genres. Each genre is assigned a color dot at the bottom
of the spine label.  Orange for Sports, Red for Horror, etc.   Teachers are
very good about guiding students to appropriate reading levels.  "You 2nd
graders are in the ER section and Mrs. Haynes will tell you when you can
move from blue star to red star!"  We usually start moving students up to
the genre bookshelves at about the 3rd grade level, but give them lessons
in "How to Find a Good Fit Book" and provide bookmarks with titles like "10
Best Sports Books for 3rd graders"  or "3rd Grade Loves a Mystery" to steer
them towards appropriate titles.

These sections have worked really well for us:  the call number is obvious
in an online catalog search and the color coding is visually helpful once
you get to the shelves.

Michelle Harris
Heyworth CUSD #4

On Mon, Nov 7, 2022 at 12:22 PM Keary Bramwell via AISLE <
aisle at list.railslibraries.info> wrote:

> I work at a pk-8th grade school that has call numbers all over the place.
> I'm trying to come up with a more unified system and make it easier for the
> different grades to find books at their level. The current call
> numbers/categories for fiction are YA, FIC (this is mostly middle grade but
> also can be a catch all), E (picture books), READERS, and GRAPHIC NOVELS.
> But what's included in each area is all over the place and not super
> consistent. I'm trying to create a section for chapter books (i.e. Acorn
> series or Princess in Black) to help my kindergarten to second graders
> navigate finding them easier. Right now, some of them are in the READERS
> and some of them are in FIC, not to mention the few I found in E. Does
> anyone have a section like this and if so, what do you call it or use for a
> call number? Any other advice on how you organize your library when it
> serves such a large age span to help the younger kids navigate it is
> welcome! I am moving lots of my picture books into bins, but I have limited
> space.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Keary Bramwell
> School Librarian
> Grace Lutheran School
> kbramwell at graceriverforest.org
> MAILMAN_MIMEDEFANG
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-- 
*Michelle Harris*
District Librarian
Heyworth CUSD #4
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