In the last two and a half years, I have established two brand new primary school libraries. The first was as a beginning TL, where, in being guided by the experience of our library administration assistant, it was established according to traditional organisation principles of A-Z for fiction and Dewey Decimal Classification (DCC) for non fiction. The second school library was established this year in a temporary space (demountables) while the permanent school is being built around us. Having undertaken subject ETL505 last year, this greatly impacted upon my decision to genrefy both the fiction and non fiction collections. I transitioned to a genrefied (and also simplified) system in my second library, using custom colour and picture-coded genre labels. The ‘simplified’ part refers to including only the first Author alphabet letter and also containing the ‘fiction’ and ‘non fiction’ designation on the label also.
I feel that undertaking this process has dramatically enhanced browsability, as students are more able to find a book of interest. This has also engaged students, even as young as kindergarten, in the shelving process with increased accuracy. The genrefication process has required adjustments in the Oliver Library Management System (LMS), reflecting the fiction genre categories and broad subject areas for the non fiction collections. The custom genre labels have also been integrated into the LMS to support easy item location within the catalogue, facilitating a user-friendly experience for students.