Friday, May 11, 2012

Entertaining Non-Fiction, continued...

Hi everyone!

We're continuing to work on the library's entertaining non-fiction section.  The work is happening in irregular spurts, however.  We seem to alternate between a few days in a row where nothing is done because the library's senior staff members are really busy and a day of steady activity and progress.

As it stands right now, we've pulled entertaining non-fiction from roughly three quarters of the library's non-fiction collection and as I've said.  What's next?

1)  Pulling entertaining non-fiction from the remaining quarter
Paula, Sharon and I are working on it as time permits, and are mostly pulling things to be considered as entertaining non-fiction.

2)  Going through the books we've pulled to return some to the general non-fiction section
Part of the idea behind an entertaining non-fiction section is that *any* book pulled from the shelves should be entertaining and hard to put down.  In an ideal world, we'd set the bar high enough that if a patron borrows an entertaining non-fiction book on a subject he/she has even a minor interest in, the book won't be returned until that patron has read it cover to cover.

3)  Changing the shelving location in Evergreen
At present, all the entertaining non-fiction books are still listed as general non-fiction in Evergreen and in our online catalogue.  Once we've finished selecting the books that will become our entertaining non-fiction collection, we'll be creating a new category for them in Evergreen, and switch the books over to it.  So when you search for entertaining non-fiction items in the catalogue, the search results will point you in the right direction.

4)  Labeling the entertaining non-fiction
As I've posted about previously, I created a label we'll be using on the spine of all entertaining non-fiction books.  It's distinct and very identifiable even at a distance, and will help the library staff to keep the entertaining non-fiction on its own shelves.

5)  Ongoing maintenance
Like with the library's other collections, we'll actively work on developing the entertaining non-fiction collection over time by buying new items and weeding old and unused ones.

I know I'm heavily biased folks, but I'm excited about establishing this collection.  I've worked here for nearly four years and have seen many of these books arrive at the library, but I still find myself wandering by the entertaining non-fiction shelves thinking "I'd like to read that book," "This book sounds interesting," or "I need to remember to borrow this book!"

What's more, I think you'll do the same.

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