Welcome to the Neighborhood(s)

This is what it used to
look like, jumbled and
hard to browse.

For this, my 100th blog post here at the Show Me Librarian, I want to share with you my branch's new picture book setup.

Let's start back in June in Anaheim. I was at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference, and I was sitting in a program called "I WANT A TRUCK BOOK! Reorganizing Your Picture Book Collection to Meet the Needs of Young Patrons and their Caregivers." Gretchen Caserotti, she of Darien Library and LJ 2010 Mover and Shaker fame, was the first speaker, and she talked about her library's wildly successful reorganization of its "kidlit" collection--picture books for the under-5 crowd. It's safe to say that I was greatly intrigued by what Gretchen said. Organizing picture books in a manner that empowers both kids (i.e., pre-readers) and caregivers to really use the collection? YES! Where do I sign up?

Here's a look at some of our shelves in
Picture Book City following the reorganization.

I came back from Anaheim completely invigorated and full of excitement at the potential of reorganizing the picture books in my branch. I took a few days to work out the details of how I would proceed, and then I explained the concept and project plan to my branch manager. She agreed to let me shake things up after only three minutes of conversation--I never even had to break out my persuasive statistics. The next few months in the branch were spent a) confirming the categories we'd break our picture books into, and b) giving picture books a colored sticker to correspond with their category. Volunteers were a huge help in getting some of the straightforward stickering underway with the help of subject lists; I did the more time-intensive work of opening a picture book, reading enough of it to determine its category, then stickering it.

In progress--so many piles!

That's how we proceeded until last week, however. My branch was closed Monday through Thursday for some painting and electrical work, but staff were still assigned shifts to work while the public was not in the building. In those four days, thanks to a number of extremely helpful and hardworking staff, we finished our project. Monday and Tuesday consisted of stickering every remaining picture book in one of our eight categories, or neighborhoods as we now call them. Wednesday consisted of putting the books in each neighborhood in alphabetical order (some on shelves, some in piles), and on Thursday we scanned and shelved. Yes, we scanned every single picture book, then shelved them alphabetically within their new neighborhood locations. That's approximately 8000 books. In one day. With a team of five. I owe them treats.

Ta-da!

When we opened again at 9 a.m. on Friday morning, our picture books were converted into what is now called Picture Book City (fun wooden sign to come, as soon as I make it). One of my staffers took pictures of our C-shaped picture book area and stitched them together for a sort of 180 effect; can you see the lovely rainbow? Each neighborhood begins with a sign explaining both the types of books in the neighborhood and the purpose of the Picture Book City neighborhood system. I also made handouts to explain our neighborhood categories.

One of my favorite parts of Friday--our first day with the new system, when people could have been really confused or upset by the change--was hearing so many caregivers express how simple and navigable our picture books now are. When I was in the children's section explaining the system to a mom and her son, I asked the young boy what types of stories he likes; he said "trucks," and literally within moments he was able to find all of the truck books. He and his mom were thrilled. These are the reactions I'm getting pretty much across the board. I cannot wait until our story times start again next week to see how our program-goers like it. I'm also looking forward to watching our picture book circulation statistics over the coming months. I'll report back.

Now that the ever-popular
transportation books are in
one place, I can tell I need
to buy more. Lots more.

I could not have reorganized the picture books at my branch without the support and physical labor of so many branch staff and volunteers. I am likewise indebted to Gretchen and the awesome team of children's librarians at the Darien Library; they planted the idea in my head, let me bounce my ideas for modifying their system off of them, and provided me with much-needed encouragement in the more stressful stages of the process.

Because, yes, it was stressful. And yes, it took a while. I shudder to think how chaotic it would have been to finish the reorganization had the branch not been closed. But all things considered, it's worth it. Kids finding books more easily?

Oh, it is so worth it.