Thinking About Genrefying Your Library? Here Are Our Top 10 Tips & Tricks For Genrefication, Friends.

  

This summer, one of Shannon's Summer Series webinars from Follett Content was all about genrefication. Genrefication is the process of organizing, classifying, and categorizing items into genres, making it easier for our readers to browse and find books they want to read. It also helps our teachers find books they want to tie to the curriculum and use with their students in the classroom. 

Two of my special teacher librarian friends, Amanda Chacon and Lauren Mobley,  joined me for the amazing conversation and learning that took place in the webinar, Dewey or Don’t We? 

During the webinar, we spoke about the pros and cons of genrefication, and went on to share our favorite tips and tricks when taking on the task of genrefying your library collection.  Before I share the webinar recording and resources, I would love to share 10 Tips for Genrefication that I took away from the webinar, and that I have used within our library at Van Meter School, too. 

Here Are Our Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Genrefication 

1. ASK A FRIEND

As you are thinking about genrefying your library, ask a few friends to help. This will really speed along the process. It is also super helpful to have others to talk to as you are weeding and going through the process of genrefying your library.  

My daughter, Brianna, who was a senior at my school at the time helped genrefy our collection along with several other students in elementary and middle school. It was great to have the feedback of our readers.  After all, it is their library. 

2. WEED

The first step when you get to your shelves, is to weed. Weed, and then weed again. When I genrefied our library, one of the best things about the process was getting my hands on every single book we had in our collection.  As you are weeding and moving things around, you get to know your collection so well. 

It’s super helpful to run an online collection analysis with TitleWise.  You can then get a personalized report that shows the weaknesses of the collection, and also the strengths. This helps to plan an effective weeding strategy as you explore and sort the books in your collection, while looking for possible weeding candidates. 

3. DEFINE 

Next, define the genre categories you want for your collection. I like to call these  the “book neighborhoods” in our library. You want to be sure the decisions you make when creating your categories or book neighborhoods help the students and teachers find books throughout the library and on the shelves. Are they helping them locate books?  Does it help them find relatable books? Does it get them excited about browsing the shelves? I love how it gives them a “bookstore” feel and provokes conversations and curiosity. 

Tag Explorer within Titlewave is super helpful. You can browse BISAC Subject Headings, Sears Subject Headings, and Follett Tags. This really helped us define the genre categories for our library. 

4. CHAT 

When we were defining our genre neighborhoods, I talked to our readers a lot. It’s important to listen to your students in this process.  As we shared in the webinar, create special sections for the most requested and popular books, and even change these up throughout the year with holidays, award books, most popular authors, and more. 

5. MAP 

After defining the genre categories, it is time to lay out a map of where you want the genre neighborhoods to be throughout the library.  Think about what makes sense to your readers, and to your teachers. 

When we had our map laid out, we took sticky notes and labeled all of the shelves with the genre categories. I kept these up for a few days and moved them around as I thought through the locations and how we wanted them arranged. 

6. TEST 

It is now time to move books around into these genre neighborhoods. You don’t have to do the whole library at one time. You can make changes in small chunks. 

Before I tackled our entire library, I tested it out first with graphic novels. I took all of the graphic novels and moved them onto a big shelf section that was located right where the kids walked into the library. I made a colorful sign that said, Check out our graphic novels!  I watched and studied what happened to the circulation of graphic novels. Within a few days, the circulation of all graphic novels increased and our readers were so excited to see so many in our collection. So I then tried it with some of our nonfiction that was never checked out, and the same thing happened.  Just by moving things around, we got our readers' attention. After that experience, I knew it would be a hit to genrefy our library.   When our library opened that fall, it was ready for our readers. 

7. LABEL

One of the most important things about genrefying is the signage and labels. It is important for students to be able to walk into the library and find what they need by browsing the signage and labels. In the webinar, we shared how important it is to use pictures and words so that all readers can find what they need on the shelves. 

Follett Content has amazing custom genre label designs in the Do-It-Yourself Genre Kits in Titlewave. They include the spine labels, shelf labels, and posters. You can also use or even have Follett Content apply  color coded protector labels to help define and label  genre neighborhoods.

8. GET EXTRA HELP

When you need extra help, Follett Content also provides support through their Library Genre Services. These services are customized to meet the unique needs of each library. They can even help genrefy your book order with genre labels so you don’t have to do it yourself, and then ship your books shelf-ready and in genre order! And I love how our genres were even added to our Titlewave account, which makes it very easy for cataloging.  

9. TAKE YOUR TIME 

We worked on the project for about 8 weeks one summer. But that is pretty fast. With the help of our students using the library, we refined it throughout the entire school year

Genrefication is a slow process and it’s normal for it to go on for many weeks and even months!  Take your time and work on one section at a time.  

10. BE OPEN

Within all of these tips and tricks in genrefication, one of the best tips I have to share is to be open and prepared to continue to make changes and adjustments to your genre neighborhoods. 

Even once our library was genrefied, we continued to make changes throughout the year.  In fact, we continue to make changes every single year. That is one of the great things about genrefication. Be open to suggestions from your readers. Be open to suggestions from teachers.  And remember, you don’t have to do everything at once. 

Now that we have shared 10 Tips and Tricks for Genrefication, check out the webinar, Dewey or Don’t We? here on demand.  You will also find the webinar slides and resources here.