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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 11d

Starting fall break with Bury Your Gays by @chucktingle.bsky.social. Only reading this in the daylight hours because I don’t normally do horror 😂 #BookSky

Me holding the book Bury Your Gays. The title is big neon purple, orange and pink letters with an LA landscape of palm trees inside of the letters

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 14d

Yeah I agree. I think Metis is uniquely wonderful for an early years setting. My friend did just reclassify her nonfiction collection to topic based whole word call numbers (inspired by Metis) and her circulation has increased wildly. Like some sections by 500%

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 14d

Terrible! I reclassified my early years collection to Metis and it is SO much better. Circulation doubled because it makes sense to students AND, as a bonus, it’s not so heinously offensive.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 17d

We started moving the nonfiction books today! I love shelves that aren’t totally full 😍 Once all books are moved, we’ll do another weed for books that haven’t circed in 6 years. Then I’ll go through each shelf and start the Franken-Dewey so it’s one topic on each shelf #TLsky #EduSky #LibrarySky

Three library shelving units. Each shelf has a sign with a Dewey number, a topic, and a picture to represent the topic. Only 2 of the 9 shelves are more than 50% full

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 20d

Yaaasss. DDC is the worst, but I don’t have the staffing, time, or resources in this library to do a full reclassification to whole word call number. This is like the bootleg version of that lol. I reclassified our early years library using Metis, and it is amazing. Gottta ditch Dewey!

William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 20d

So many ancient books, so little time 🤣

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 20d

Franken-Dewey! I’m making each shelf about one topic. So it’s a lot of weeding and changing call numbers. For example, we’ll have a 305 shelf about community workers that I’ll put all the jobs books on.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 20d

Hahahaha it’s my fav thing to do. It’s like finding a time capsule 😂 I work in China and I just weeded a book about the Mayflower from 1969

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 20d

How will we live without this book about American football from 1992? 😂🤣 #EduSky #TLsky #LibrarySky

I’m holding an extremely old elementary nonfiction book about football

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 20d

The nonfiction reorganization is starting with aggressive weeding. It’s the low hanging fruit: damaged, duplicates, and extremely old. Once this weed is done and the books are back in DDC order, we’ll run a report for books not checked out in 6 years and weed those too. We just can’t find them now.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 23d

I’ve never had the physical shelf space to reorganize and dynamic shelf-ify (shout out @kelseybogan.bsky.social) my elementary collections. How did you do it?

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 23d

I was a whole school librarian for 7 years and reorganizing to make it more browseable is easy to do with MS/HS nonfiction collections because circ is lower and the curricular support is often digital, but my elementary nonfiction sections have been large and they get SO much circ.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 23d

I love talking to librarians about this stuff 🤓 Are the pictures in your first reply from your library? I’m always interested in how elementary school librarians reorganize their nonfiction.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 23d

I thought about keeping the baskets and changing the call numbers, but because of the shelves’ width, they can only hold two baskets which isn’t enough to hold the collection.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 23d

I think the missing piece was not changing call numbers to either whole word topics (like Metis classification) or changing DDC call numbers to make a basket have a small, set range (like a food basket with only 641.5) that could sit where it should go if it were spine out.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 23d

It looks good, but isn’t functional. I was recently moved to this school, and I was excited to see that someone had tried to make it more browsable. It’s just that some books in baskets and some books spine out is VERY confusing. I can’t find anything. Kids can’t find anything.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

We’re ditching the baskets and going to one topic per shelf. I’m going to have to change a lot of DDC numbers to make it make sense, but that’s fine. We don’t have the space to do everything in baskets (which is my first choice). Hopefully this hits the sweet spot between browsable and searchable

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

Haha that’s the problem. It looks good but doesn’t function. The library assistant can’t even figure out where to reshelve the books. When it was reorganized, nothing in the catalog records was changed, so we can’t find anything on the shelf when the kids are searching for specific titles.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

I think my “What would HUNTR/X read?” book display is going to be popular. This was after my first class visit 😂😂 Thanks KPop Demon Hunters 💛

A table with six empty book display stands. On the end of the table is a poster with a picture of the band HUNTR/X with the caption “What would HUNTR/X read?”

William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

So we’re getting rid of the baskets, going back to spine out, and I’m going to Franken-Dewey this collection so that each shelf is about one topic. Stay tuned for progress pics 🤓

William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

Kids also can’t take the baskets down from the top shelves because the kids are too short and the baskets are too heavy.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

The baskets make it more browsable. However, it’s impossible to know if a book is in a basket or spine out. It is SO difficult to find books that are available. The baskets are generally beside their Dewey number, but not always.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · 24d

Nonfiction Reorganization: Part 2 Electric Boogaloo has begun! #TLSky #EduSky #Library Here are the before shots:

A corner in a library that has three shelves. Some books are spine out on the shelves. Some books are in baskets based on topics. The baskets have signs with the topic and a picture.

A wall in a library that has three shelves. Some books are spine out on the shelves. Some books are in baskets based on topics. The baskets have signs with the topic and a picture. There are baskets of books on top of the shelves.

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · Sep 4

This what would Labubu read display is so popular, I have to refill it after every class. I’m being forced to booktalk Dahl because so many other books have flown off the table 😂 Thanks to the TheBookWrangler for the idea! #EduSky #TLsky #BookSky #LibrarySky

A table with a sign that says “What would Labubu read?” The table has empty book stands with one Roals Dahl book left. There are images from Kasing Lung’s “The Monsters Trilogy” behind the table

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William H @lankylibrarian.bsky.social · Aug 31

Just finished it! I loved it. It’s so so so connected to library work. Now I’m left wondering what an abolitionist framework looks like with something like LCSH…..

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