How to (or should I) make a suggestion at our library?

[a27mom]

First, we have a wonderful small town library. I have great rapport with the staff.

 

I have one issue with the library, all the children's books below chapter books are shelved together. Every picture book, board book, and easy reader (fiction & non-fiction) is shelved together by author. My daughters are just moving into easy readers and it is often hard to find them, especially since a lot of the ones they are interested in aren't by consistent authors (ie. my youngest loves "step into reading" Cars books). Several other moms have had similar difficulties. We would love it if the easy readers were in one shelving section. It is like this at the larger library in town, and it is wonderful.

 

I so want to suggest this. I would even be willing to do much of the work to accomplish it. but obviously there would be some logistical things I couldn't do since it would affect their shelving and cataloging long term.

 

But I also don't want them to feel like I am being critical. It really is a wonderful library. And I certainly don't expect them to change just because I want it. But I know it would be helpful to many of us, not just me.

 

So do I even bring it up, and if I do how?

[Guest]

If you do have a good rapport with staff, it should be easy to say pretty much what you just said here.

 

"I was wondering why all the children's books are lumped together. I've been to Big City Library and the Easy Readers are separately shelved, which makes them much easier to find when new readers want a bunch for practice. Is there a reason we can't have it that way here, too? It would be so much more user-friendly that way."

 

The library I go to has them separated. They also separate the board books. There is another nearby library which shelves all kinds of materials together and I hate it.

[sewingmama]

Our library has a crazy system...the chapter books used to be shelved by author like a normal library....but it looks like someone got bored one day and now all the chapter books are shelved by genre which makes it impossible to find anything. Seriously... if I want to find Harry Potter I have to make a guess whether it will be under Fantasy or Adventure or Magic. I rarely borrow chapter books from there anymore...its the stupidest thing I've ever seen.

 

However, our library does group the easy readers together on one shelf....still filed under genre though.

 

I don't see any harm in asking though.. I don't consider it rude or critical just to ask why they are shelved that way

 

I would love to ask our librarians whose dumb idea it was to re shelve our books like that but out librarians are cranky and since the re shelving happened when the new head librarian started I'm guessing it was her..... and since she is the crankiest of all AND is not homeschool friendly I'm a bit afraid LOL.

[ThisIsTheDay]

Mention it.  I worked in the children's dept. of a library that had the same set up.  For a couple of years, we had requests to split out the easy reader books, and we knew it needed to be done.  We thought it through, and for our library, the best plan was to mark the Easy Reader books with dots. They stayed with the other books but were easily spotted.

 

If your library has enough comments, they may go ahead and do something to make their system more efficient for their patrons.

 

 

[happi duck]

Our library has an actual suggestion box...perhaps yours does too.

 

It's a reasonable suggestion to make. You also don't need to volunteer to do the work. It will be part of someone's paid job most likely.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Mention it.  I worked in the children's dept. of a library that had the same set up.  For a couple of years, we had requests to split out the easy reader books, and we knew it needed to be done.  We thought it through, and for our library, the best plan was to mark the Easy Reader books with dots. They stayed with the other books but were easily spotted.

 

If your library has enough comments, they may go ahead and do something to make their system more efficient for their patrons.

Ours are marked with a bright florescent green sticker on the spine.  It makes it much easier to find even if they are shelved with the other books.

[a27mom]

Thanks :). Typing it out and your responses made it all seem very reasonable. In general our library is so above and beyond what one would expect in such a small town (population 500) I don't want to add a burden to the very small staff, so I have been a little squirrelly about suggestions.

 

I think I will just go in there and say something like. "have you ever tried shelving...like the big library. It was so helpful to have it that way when we went last week. If you think that might work I would be happy to help, I know it could be a big project."

[Word Nerd]

Our old library (which I still miss) had a separate easy reader section and further sorted those books according to level. Publishers are inconsistent in how they determine what level an easy reader book is, and it helped a lot when DD12 was a beginning reader to be able to flip through the easy readers easily without having to look through all the big shelves. You could simply ask the librarians if they've ever considered putting the easy readers in one place so that it would be easier for patrons to find them. They may have already considered the idea and decided not to implement it, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.