Picture books are the least browsable part of a children’s library collection. What can libraries do to provide easier access to princess, dinosaur, car or other high interest books for children ? At the 2012 Illinois Library Association Conference, a panel of children’s librarians and catalogers discussed a recent trend of creating browsable, patron friendly picture book collections. Topics included process, challenges, and successes.

1. Addison Public Library

2. Where Are the
Princess Books?
Child-Friendly Organization of Picture Books
at the Addison Public Library
Illinois Library Association
Annual Conference
October 10, 2012

3. Speakers
Mary G. Marshall
Assistant Director/Head of Children’s Services
Addison Public Library
marshall@addisonlibrary.org
Brooke Sievers
Head of Technical Services
Addison Public Library
sievers@addisonlibrary.org

4. Celebrate the Idea?

5. Or Worry that We’ll be
Fired?

6. The Marathon:
Reorganization of
Our Picture Book
Collection

7. Our Library & Collections
 Picture Book Collection: 12,500 items
 Completed weeding & adding RFID Tags August 2011
 Picture books shelved on standard shelving, not in bins

8. Why Would We Do This?
 Child & Adult Friendly
 Visual & Browsable
 Intuitive
 Discover similar books to
favorites
 Increase circulation

9. Ready!
Preparing for the Project

10. For Your Consideration
 Where will you edit call numbers
for multiple items on same bib?
 Who has final say on the call
number?
 Who decides when a new
category needs to be added?
What’s the criteria?
 How will you communicate to
everyone involved in the project
that new categories were
created?
 Where to start? Which books will
be in high demand with school or
holidays?

11. More For Your
Consideration
 How will you shelve the books
without using bin shelving?
HOW???  How will you make the collection
available to the public during the
conversion?
 How will you process the collection
with new call numbers?
 How will you complete this project
while the Library is open?
 How will you purchase or create
signage?

12. Set: Planning

13. What to Consider
When Creating the Classification List
 Approximately how many books
might be in each category?
 How will you create classification
subjects within limitations of
length of call numbers?
 How will you create classification
subjects that can be used to
create lists (for example, using
“jEASY” in Millennium)
 How will you limit call numbers
for printing (8-11 characters)

14. Creating Classification
Lists
 Created classification lists, using as a starting point subject
lists created by Darien, CT and Indian Prairie (Darien, IL)
 Worked on drafts (more than 7 drafts) of the classification
(Two children’s staff members consulting with the Head of
Technical Services)
 Created lists to determine approximately how many books
we might have in each category

15. Classification Draft #1
September 2011

16. Classification Draft #2

17. Animals
African
Classification Draft #3
Basics
123
Go,Go,Go!
Boats
Holidays
100th
Me
Bath
Nature
Fall
People
Baby
Bears ABC Cars Christmas Bedtime Gardens Cowboys
Birds Colors More (multiple topics) Easter Body More Dad
Bugs Concepts Planes Halloween Clothes Sky Family
Cats Opposites Trains Jewish Fear Spring Friends
Cows Shapes Trucks More Feelings Summer Grandparents
Dinosaurs Time Islamic Firstday Trees Helpers
Dogs St.Patrick's Growing Water Mom
Ducks Thanksgiving Love Weather Pirates
Forest Valentine's Manners Winter Princesses
Frogs Myday Siblings
Mice Ouches
More Potty Teachers
Ocean Safety
Penguins Self-Esteem
Pets
Pigs
Rabbits
Sheep
Places Play Stories
City Art Fairytales
County Dance Favorites (Authors)
Farm Music Food
Fun Playtime Funny
Home Reading History
Library Rhymes Imaginary
School Songs Scary
World Sports Series
Zoo Toys Spiritual
Trips Wordless

18. Classification Draft #4

19. Classification Draft #5

20. Classification Draft #6
January 2012

21. Classification Final
February 20, 2012

22. Final Categories
 Animals
 Basics
 Go,Go,Go!
 Holidays
 Me
 Nature
 People
 Places
 Play
 Stories

23. Individualizing
Categories & Sub-categories to Meet
Our Library’s Needs
 Animals: added “Horses”
 Used “Basics”
 Used “Go,Go,Go!” for Transportation : Added “Build”
 Holidays: Added “Islamic,” “Jewish,” “More”
 Me: Added “Health,” “Manners,” “Moving,” “Potty,” “Safety,”
“Senses,” “Special”
 Nature: Added “Weather”
 People: Added “Baby,” “Babysit,” “Royal,” “Witch”
 Places: Added “Beach,” “Fun”
 Play: Added “Playtime,” “Rhymes,” “Trips”
 Stories: Added “Birthday,” “Imaginary,” “Favorite,” “Movies,”
“Series,” “Wordless”

24. Birthday
STORIES
Favorite (favorite authors: Brett, Brown, Carle, DePaola, Ehlert, Fleming, Henkes, Kellogg, Lionni,
Numeroff, Potter, Sendak, Seuss, Van Allsburg, Willems)
Food
Funny
History (historical fiction)
Imaginary (imaginary creatures, science fiction, dreams)
Movies (books based on movies & TV)
Scary
Series (favorite characters: Angelina Ballerina, Arthur, Babar, Barbie, Barney, Batman, Bear in the Big Blue
House, Berenstain Bears, Biscuit, Blues Clues, Bob the Builder, Caillou, Care Bears, Charlie & Lola, Clifford,
Corduroy, Curious George, David, Diego, Dinosaur Train, Disney, Dora, Eloise, Fancy Nancy, Five Little
Monkeys, Franklin, Froggy, Kai-Lan, Kipper, Little Critter, Lyle the Crocodile, Madeline, Maisy, Martha the
Talking Dog, Max & Ruby, Mr. Men/Little Miss, My Little Pony, Olivia, Peanuts, Pinkalicious, Rainbow Fish,
Rugrats, Scaredy Squirrel, Scooby Doo, Sesame Street, Shrek, Spider-man, Spongebob, Spot, Star Wars,
Strawberry Shortcake, Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thomas, Toot & Puddle, Transformers, Veggie Tales)
Spiritual (religious, creation stories, heaven)
Tales (Traditional folk & fairy tales, parodies, modern stories in the style of tales--arranged by tale name)
Wordless (stories told through pictures and without words)

25. Go! We’re Off

26. Children’s Staff, Go!
 Created lists to determine
approximately the number of items in
the subcategories.
 Start with the next big holiday so
you’re not doing those while they’re
popular
 Series! It’s easy and a huge collection!
 Don’t forget to think about shifting!
 Sent completed books with sticky
notes to Technical Services for
changes in catalog and spine labels
 Shifted
 Created temporary signs

27. Workflow
CS staff pull books and CS changed Finished!
put Post-It with new call
number on the book mind and back
to the
beginning….
Shelve finished books, or
put in pre-shelving, or
return unfinished books to
TS knew to daily look “To Do” cart
for carts; took carts
back to TS; only take
what you can get
done in the time
allotted
Used Print spine label, cover old
macros/shortcuts to spine label on book with
edit call numbers in
Millennium new, cover with book
tape, & put the item back

28. Where to Start
 Thanksgiving books
 Halloween books after the holiday
 Christmas books before the holiday
 Series
 Animals
 1,2,3
 A,B,C
 Other (lists and pulling subject
related books)
 Finally, alphabetical by author of the
books remaining

29. Shifting
 Holiday books were completed
before circulating for the holiday
and then put on display
 Use top of shelves for completed
books (in the area where we
estimated they would be)
 Shift books to middle as tightly
as possible to leave room at the
beginning (Animals) and end
(Stories)
 As shelves were emptied,
completed sections were moved
 Temporary signs created

30. Where Do We Put This
Book?
 Two Children’s staff decided on the classification for the
retrospective cataloging & Copy Cataloger classified new
books, sometimes after consulting the children’s staff
 Examined/skimmed the book to quickly determine the
category.
 Considered: How the book best fit into a category, series
books trumped other categories, Holidays trumped all
categories except series.
 Checked subject headings for help, but found that LC
subjects were not always helpful—especially with animal
books
 If a book could fall into more than one category, we chose
the one that we thought would be most useful for patrons and
sometimes also considered story time use

31. Fine Tuning
 “Series” trumps “Holidays”
 “Holidays” trump “Favorites”
 “Feelings (death) trumps everything
 “Potty” trumps everything
JEASY
STORIES JEASY JEASY
SERIES HOLIDAYS ME
ANGELINA CHRISTMAS POTTY
BRETT J. SHEA B.

32. Preparing Books for
Re-cataloging
JEASY/PLAY/PLAYTIME

33. Which Should It Be?
JEASY/STORIES/FOOD
or
JEASY/PLAY/RHYMES

34. jEASY/STORIES/FOOD
Apple Pie that Papa Baked

35. Which Should It Be?
Nature/Sky or Play/Pretend or Play/Trips

36. jEASY/NATURE/SKY
One Day, Daddy

37. Is This a Book about a
Dog?

38. Maybe, but…

39. Call
Numbers
 Length
 Format- can you have
spaces? Dashes?
#@!?
 Those books are
skinny… which part of
the call number will
show on the spine? Be
consistent.

40. Spine Labels

41. Spine Label:Thicker Book

42. Problem!
We Can’t Purchase Signs that Work with This Project.
What Do We Do?

43. Make Our Own!
 Decide on what is needed on
the signs
 Find Clip Art
 Design & print on 11”x17” paper
 Laminate signs
 Bend & tape to bookends
 Used clear category signs for
new picture book shelving

44. Signs We Created
Front View with Classification Signs for
Side View with
Subcategory for the New Picture Books
Complete Call Number
Princess books

45. Intermediate Signage

46. Draft of Endcap Signs

47. Draft & Final Endcap Signs

48. Final Signs--Multiple

49. Main Category Display
Signs

50. Clean Up
 Ran a report in Create Lists (III-
Millennium) of all Picture Books
 Sorted by call number
 Deleted any that were correct
 Left with mistakes, typos, etc.
 Found the books on shelf &
corrected them
 Shelvers gave recently returned
books with old call numbers to
staff to change
 Change status of books without
the call number change to
missing with a TS hold

51. The Finish Line

52. Did You Hit the Mark?
 Know why you’re doing this
project and what you hope
to accomplish so you can
measure your success
 Be sure to have before and
after Circ stats
 Track hours staff members
worked on project; great to
use for annual goals
 Revisit decisions and see if
they worked… maybe you
do need a “Duck” section
rather than just “Birds”

53. What We Learned
 Make all of your categories singular or plural
 Physically post updated category list
 Have a shared file of updated categories
everyone can access
 Change call numbers in groups; this helps TS
staff and re-shelving
 New picture books will take longer to catalog.
Be prepared for this permanent, additional time
in workflow
 Cataloging is a joint effort now
 Know that categories will be added and
changes made during the course of the project
and be OK with it.
 Divide larger sections further, ex: Animals/More

54. What Surprised Us
 Some categories had more books
than we expected: “Fox,” “Geese,”
“Chickens”
 Some categories had fewer books
than we expected: “Horses”
 The number of books that we couldn’t
easily determine what they were
about.
 The number of animal books that
weren’t really about that animal, ex:
dogs
 Once we moved the “Series” books
together, Many were always out and
we had extra room on those shelves.

55. Challenges
 Time to complete the project
 Deciding on main categories
 Deciding on subcategories for each
main category
 Deciding on the categories for some
of the books
 Determining best way to shift & shelve
during the transition
 Keeping shelf breaks logical for the
categories
 Finding commercial signs to purchase
 Difficulty in finding books if shelved
incorrectly
 Making main category signs show
from both sides

56. Successes
 Increase in circulation of
Picture Books
 Many compliments from
teachers and parents about
the new arrangement
 Children discovering and
returning to their favorite
section of books
 Patrons being introduced to
many new books that they
had not seen before.

57. What Did Patrons Think?
Selected Comments before project was completed:
 A teacher was looking for picture books about winter. When staff showed her the
new cataloging & arrangement of books, the teacher was very enthusiastic: “This
is wonderful and will be great for those of us who are teachers!” (January 2012)
 When staff was helping a patron in the picture book collection, the patron
commented on the new arrangement: “This is going to make it so easy for me!”
(February 2012)
 A teacher liked the way our picture books had been categorized so much that she
did the same thing in her classroom. (April 2012)
Selected Comments after project was completed:
 A patron said, “I really like the way the picture books are organized.
 A staff member from another department: “I can’t believe how easy it was to find
the books on my list. I wish it had been like this when my kids were little.”
 A parent told us: “I love your new picture book section. It makes it so much easier
to find princess books for my daughter.”

58. Increased Picture Book Circulation
May-September 2011 versus May-September 2012
1 2327 (September 2012)
0 32% Increase
9 1762 (September 2011)
8 2529 (August 2012) 59% Increase
7 1589 (August 2011)
6 2964 (July 2012) 30% Increase
5 2291 (July 2011)
4 3221 (June 2012) 18% Increase
3 2743 (June 2011)
2 1836 (May 2012) 15% Increase
1 1590 (May 2011)
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

59. More Advice
 Cooperation of Technical Services and
Administration is CRUCIAL to the Project
 Helpful to only have two or three people working
on the project—more consistency and agreement
on what should be in the category
 Don’t rely on LC cataloging to determine the
classification of the book
 Children’s Services Staff who are enthusiastic
about the project is ESSENTIAL

60. What’s Next?
 Pull very easy nonfiction, such as song, rhymes, transportation
books and move to picture book collection
 Consider a system for cataloging non-fiction fairy tales
 Divide larger subcategories
 Consider changing Spanish language picture books into this
system
J629.222/COL J398.8/CHI

61. Timeline of Preparation
 September 2009: Attended a presentation by the Frankfort
Public Library at ILA Conference Program on changing to
BISAC for adult books
 October 2009: Read about Darien, CT Library’s project in
Library Journal
 January 2011: Read the ALSC-L Discussion about “Picture
Books by Subject”
 January 2011: Discussed the project with our new Head of
Technical Services & Children’s Staff
 February-August 2011: Researched other libraries that were
doing this type of classification.
 September-October 2011: Created Classification Schedule
for the project
 October 2011: Visited Indian Prairie Library to view their
collection

62. Timeline of Project
 October 2011-May 2012: Created lists to determine
approximately the number of items in the subcategories.
Checked all the books in the picture book collection and
assigned call numbers to each, shifted, created temporary
signs, sent books to Technical Services for changes in
catalog and spine labels
 May 2012: Created permanent shelving, endcap, and top of
shelving signs and completed final shifting
 May 2012: Created a brochure for patrons with lists of the
new cataloging
 May 2012: Ran a list to find books that we missed and still
had the old call numbers
 May 2012-present: Work with Technical Services to
determine call numbers of new additions to the Picture Book
Collection

63. Questions?
Mary G. Marshall
Assistant Director/Head of Children’s Services
Addison Public Library
marshall@addisonlibrary.org
Brooke Sievers
Head of Technical Services
Addison Public Library
sievers@addisonlibrary.org

64. Selected Reference
Addison Public Library Slideshow from ILA 2012 Conference
http://slideshare.net
Slideshows from ALA 2012 Conference: “Where Are the Truck
Books?”
Darien Library (CT): They were one of the first libraries to do this project; however, they did not break their
collection down as much as Addison did. They have the largest part of their collection in “Favorites” and “Stories.”
http://www.slideshare.net/gcaserotti/
Stark County District Library (Public Library in Ohio): Smallest part of the collection converted. Also has a floating
collection among the branches.
http://www.slideshark.com/Landing.aspx?pi=zHxzeh3Tvz5XUxz0&intk=62627515
Ethical Culture Fieldston School Library: This was the most complete conversion of a collection—fiction and
non-fiction and was done by a private school in New York City. We might want to try some of these ideas in the future.
http://www.slideshare.net/balaskaplan/i-want-a-truck-book-metis-presentation