Cataloguing and Processing
A Resource for School Library Personnel
Chapter 3: Organizing a School Library
Organizing a school library is challenging. The following steps are designed to simplify the project.
3.1 Assemble all library resources from all areas of the school. Library personnel should avoid including
- textbooks
- sets of supplementary texts and readers
- workbooks, lab manuals, or teacher's editions
- multiple copies (six or more) of any book used as a class set
3.2 Library personnel should weed resources that are
- worn and damaged items
- superseded editions
- uncirculated for the past three to five years
- unnecessary duplicates
- non-fiction with old copyright dates and/or with inaccurate, non-metric, condescending, stereotypical, or biased information
For further information regarding weeding, please consult Weeding the School Library (see Bibliography).
3.3 Mend books in need of minor repair
3.4 Sort four sections of resources (keeping duplicate copies of the same items together) into the following
- easy books (picture books and easy fiction for Grades K-3)
- fiction books (novels and short stories)
- non-fiction books (books of fact, fairy tales, and folklore)
- audiovisual
3.5 Arrange easy books in alphabetical order by author on the shelves.
3.6 Arrange fiction books in alphabetical order by author on the shelves
3.7 Divide the non-fiction books into broad groups using the 10 main Dewey classes as a guide.
Remove any books that can be used as quick reference such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, and atlases. Place them in a separate pile. These items will form the core of the library's reference collection.
3.8 Sort audiovisual resources according to media format.
To summarize, the four major groups of resources are
- easy books (arranged alphabetically by author)
- fiction books (arranged alphabetically by author)
- non-fiction books (roughly sorted into 10 broad Dewey subject groups with an eleventh group for reference)
- audiovisual
The collection is now ready to be catalogued and processed according to the procedures outlined in the following chapters.