Month: November 2013

Ditching Dewey: Choosing Genre Categories

- librariantiff 46 Comments

One of my favorite things to talk about in library land is the genrefication of our library. I frequently get questions about this from folks who have read my blog posts or have seen me present. I blogged about the process all along the way, from the tagging my fiction books, to genre shelving fiction, to ditching Dewey in nonfiction. Those posts were basically my reflections and thoughts from when I made the move. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to write a more comprehensive blog post that I can share as a reference for people interested in genrefying their library. After our AASL presentation, I realized that a series of blog posts would be the way to go. So this post will be the first of several that will detail the process I used to genrefy the fiction and nonfiction sections of our library.

The first step in the process is to choose the genre categories that you will use. For fiction, I didn’t want to get too specific with my genres. My original categories for fiction were: realistic fiction, sports, romance, Sci-Fi/fantasy, mystery/suspense/horror, and series. As I sorted through the books, I made some changes to these categories so it made more sense for our collection and our students. I decided that it would be better for the series to go with their genres and clearly label them as series within their corresponding sections. I also added several more sections. Our fiction genres now include: historical fiction, general/realistic fiction, Sci-Fi/fantasy, action/adventure, mystery/suspense, sports fiction, relationships/romance, and inspirational fiction.

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After the success I found with our genrefied fiction, I wanted to follow suit with our nonfiction. Choosing these categories was a little harder for me. Thankfully, I had my friend Tamara Cox to look to for advice. I took her nonfiction category choices and tweaked them to work with our collection. These are the categories we use for nonfiction in our library:

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Some of our larger sections are broken into subcategories as well. This is our section and subsection breakdown:

Section List

Something that I love about this arrangement is that nothing is set in stone and you’re free to make changes to work best for your students and your curriculum — it’s okay to make some changes your categories and subcategories as you go. Make your plan for your categories, but don’t be afraid to tweak it as you go!

Watch for the next post: Labeling the Books

November Thankfulness

- librariantiff 3 Comments

November has probably been the most exciting, exhausting, and busiest month of my career to date. I’ve been a little off the grid for the last week or so, trying to recover and rest my brain a bit. Now it’s time to do a little reflecting to truly appreciate everything that’s happened this month…

ISLMA Keynote

I was so incredibly honored (okay, and a little bit nervous) when I was asked to give the Saturday keynote at the Illinois School Library Media Association annual conference. These folks put on a really great conference, and I’m so thrilled that I was able to be part of it! This was my first keynote and is a memory that I know I’ll treasure for the rest of my career. My keynote was “Examining the Sacred Cows of School Librarianship.” I had the chance to talk about many things near and dear to my heart — including a little about genrefication!

I also presented another session on my Favorite Tech Tools:

Other highlights from the conference include meeting Tim Green and Sharon Draper and having the chance to hear them speak!

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And I made a quick visit to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which was amazing!

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CMS Book Fair

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I went home just in time to meet my friends from Cavalier House Books to set up our book fair, which ran from November 4-7. I am so lucky to live near these guys, because they sure do put on an amazing fair! I did my first fair with them this spring, and it was one of the best things I did last year!

#AASL13

I’d been looking forward to AASL since the last conference in 2011! Not only did I get to see so many of my amazing library friends, I presented with many of them, too!

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A Library in Every Pocket: Click the image above to see the wiki full of resources from this pre-conference and abbreviated encore session I presented with Gwyneth Jones, Michelle Luhtala, Shannon Miller, and Brenda Boyer.

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AASL Best Apps: It was very exciting to be part of the committee that put together the 2013 (first ever!) AASL Best Apps for Teaching & Learning list, and at the conference we had lots of fun sharing that list! Click the image above to see the list!

Unconference: Even though I knew I was already pushing my limits with all of the presentations I was involved with presenting, when Joyce Valenza asks if you’re interested in helping with ANYTHING, you always say YES! I had a blast helping out at the AASL Unconference. There was such a great turn out, and so many great discussions took place!

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Ditching Dewey: I had an absolute blast presenting with Shannon Miller, Sherry Gick, Kathy Burnette, and Megan Scott on genrefication! We even got a little shout-out from School Library Journal here!

I’m a National Board Certified Teacher!

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the results from my National Board portfolio and assessment submissions for MONTHS. I am so excited to have achieved certification in my first year of the process! Even though I don’t think I’ll see any monetary benefits from this from my state or district (I believe they made changes after I started the process that cut off funding  for those certifying after July 2013, but I haven’t really researched this since I was already in the process and didn’t want it to impact my motivation), I’m still quite proud of myself for this accomplishment!

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So, that’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing for the past month! I’m so thankful for my friends, family, and amazing PLN that have supported me through all of these exciting things that took place this month. And now, I’m thankful for a break from school and some time to relax!