One of the things I enjoy most about being a teacher librarian is reading widely and being recommended great reads. I particularly enjoy being involved in the selection of the books for the Red Dot Award which is organised by The International Schools Library Network Singapore. Singapore is often referred to as the little red dot because we are a tiny dot on the world map, yet here in this island country, there is remarkable cultural diversity.
There are four categories for the award:
- Early Years (ages 3–7)
- Younger Readers (ages 7–10)
- Older Readers (ages 10-14)
- Mature Readers (ages 14-adult)
Shortlisted titles from recent children’s literature are chosen by a committee of teacher-librarians with the goal of offering a range of books from around the world. We look for diversity in:
- genres selected
- formats – we try to include one graphic novel and one non-fiction book in each category
- cultures/countries represented by the characters and of the authors, illustrators AND publishers
- the genders of the protagonist
Why is this important?
Hwang & Hindman (2014, p. 46) propose that “Multicultural literature teaches children about their heritage and the pride of their past. The illustrations, gender roles, and the language of the group should be accurate to represent the culture appropriately.” For their self esteem and sense of identity, all children need to see themselves, their family and their friends reflected in some of the books they read. My previous blog post on Why reading is important I wrote about Rudine Sims Bishop’s brilliant windows and mirrors metaphor. I also shared an amazing TED Talk where Chimamanda Adichie talks about the danger of a single story where she warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. One of my favourite organisations is Room to Read who support school libraries and girls education in the developing world. They also understand the importance of readers looking in mirrors and identifying themselves in the books they read. They produce books that are written and illustrated by local talent in the countries where they work.
Diversity of gender is also so important and I wrote about this further in Children’s Literature, past, present and future. With regards to our process for longlisting and shortlisting the Red Dot books we actually create a table that indicates all of these elements of diversity and we often end up in very heated discussions over which very high quality books we have to omit. Sometimes it is because we have too many female protagonists, sometimes it is because we have too many books from the UK or US and sometimes it is because we have more than one book from that particular genre. I am involved in choosing the older and younger readers category and often realistic fiction seems to have too many good offerings. The process is quite long and lengthy, but it is one that ensures the library staff are looking out for and reading lots of different content that does not always come from mainstream publishers.
I thought I would finish this blog post by sharing some of my absolute favourite Red Dot Books from the four years I have been involved. Just last week we almost finished finalising our shortlists for the 2020-2021 selection. Go to the red dot site above to read more about what we do in our schools to promote these books and also for the new lists which should be coming soon. You may also be interested in these three other book awards created by teacher librarians in International Schools from within Asia, Panda Book Awards, Bangkok Book Awards and the Hong Kong Golden Dragon.
Favourite Red Dot Books so far:
Early Years: Room on Our Rock, The Invisible Boy, Molly and Mae and 7 ate 9
Younger Readers: The Elephant, Stories for Kids Who Dare to Be Different, The Happiness Box, Ida Always, A Boy Called Bat, The House on Silat Road and Mango and Bambang
Older Readers: Illegal, Finding Wonders, The Goldfish Boy, Secrets of Singapore, The 1000 year old boy, Posted, Front Desk, Save Me a Seat, The Thing About Jellyfish, Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus and Sachiko
It was hard to just limit to these titles and I am afraid I could not suggest for the mature readers because I am not yet mature enough to read these texts…
Hwang, S. & Hindman, J. T. (2014). Strategies for adoption children’s refugee literature in the multicultural classroom. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 3(12), 42-53. Retrieved from https://www.theartsjournal.org/index.php/site
I have been very quiet on the blog front because I took a year break and then last semester I studied, ETL505, Describing and Analysing Educational resources. It was a very technical subject and one where we were not required to blog. However, before I start on my next subject, ETL504, I want to share a reflection I have on organising a library by genre, or as it is commonly referred to in the library world, genrefication. Part of this was used in my last paper and it was one I found fascinating to research.
“Organization is the foundational structural element for access. Without organization, no one would be able to find materials in libraries” (Dickinson, 2013, p.5).
There is a plethora of literature about arranging school library collections and many reasons for and against moving away from the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and genrefying libraries. This is driven by teacher librarians who want library collections to be organised in a way that makes more sense and with the maximum opportunity that books will be discovered and borrowed by users (Dickinson, 2013; Kaplan, 2013).
To give some context to my work situation, the three libraries in my school have not genrefied their collections. Our non-fiction is sorted by the DDC, or an abridged version of Dewey and our fiction is organised in alphabetical order, except in the infant school where part of the picture book collection is organised by subject. As all good libraries do, we constantly make and change displays to promote different parts of the collection, and sometimes this is by genre. Our Library Management System (LMS) is Destiny and we make very careful records when cataloguing and pay particular attention to using correct subject headings so that resources can be easily searchable. At the start of my research, I was very much against genrefying my library, for a number of reasons, but the most important was my concern that I did not want to pigeonhole books into just one genre and limit browsers from just looking at the genres they were most interested in. I read many articles and asked around in my librarian networks, both here in Singapore and online, and found strong opinions leaning both ways. I found a variety of statistics demonstrating an increase in borrowing after libraries had genrefied. However, for every argument that stated these increased statistics, that there was counter argument wondering if any change has an effect on borrowing statistics going up just because it leads to unexpected encounters – then changing it back again a few years later the statistics may go up again. We certainly see that when we make displays promoting different parts of the collections.
So, now for a bit of history and explanation. Dewey is the most widely used library classification system in the world and its purpose is to group items together for easy location. Many argue that the categories in Dewey are out of date and it is criticised for scattering subjects (Panzer, 2013). Others believe that Dewey is complex and not developmentally appropriate for young children. Snipes (2018) and Harris (2013) argue that it is unrealistic for a school library to follow it to the letter. Rodgers (2018) talks of streamlining Dewey to eliminate numbers after the decimal point and other library cataloguers are adapting Dewey so that it makes more sense to students. This is also why the abridged DDC has been created to support young children.
Librarians have created many new systems to address their dissatisfaction with Dewey or because they wanted a different system that arranges collections into genres. This includes Metis, BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications), C3 (Customer Centred Classification), WorldThink and Darien Library’s System (Kaplan, 2013; Kindschy, 2015). Some of these systems place fiction and non-fiction together, which some argue is more relevant with book publishers often merging these two categories and also because this can lead to students discovering tiles when just searching in just one category. The Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) uses genre headings to help categorise resources.
This has resulted in many regional systems, all of which have advantages and disadvantages. (Jameson, 2013). For all its criticisms Dewey has been used universally and successfully for over 100 years. WebDewey, also ensures that Dewey is constantly evolving and that people are interacting with it. Snipes (2018) and Jameson (2013) argue that these new organisation systems are recreating a pre-Dewey era where every library was organised differently.
In contrast to the criticism comes success stories of increased circulation. Many libraries have genrefied fiction only and others, the entire collection. Supporters of genrefication argue that organising the library in this way is more student-centered, allows for easier browsing and exposure to new authors (Bojanowski and Kwiecien, 2013; Buchter, 2013; Kaplan, 2013; Rodgers, 2018; Snipes, 2015). Kaplan (2013) proposes that searchers need to discriminate between fact v’s fiction and that library organisation is an additional way of teaching these skills. In the world of the internet, social media and fake news, this is one question I am still pondering. If the fiction and non-fiction was mixed, the students would need to regularly make these decisions, which are definitely skills needed for 21st-century learning.
Pendergass argues that “students and staff will benefit more from personal interaction with us than they will from library staff re-shelving and re-cataloguing the entire library” (2013, p. 57). Therefore, the emphasis should be on skills instruction to ensure students know how to access the library and can transfer these skills to use in other libraries. There are of course other disadvantages with genrefication. Where to place books that fit in more than one genre? Ward and Saarti (2018) discuss the necessity of in-depth of indexing. Rather than spending time reorganising library collections, the emphasis should be on managing an effective catalogue. There must be high-quality catalogue records that have correct subject headings that include genres and accurate Dewey numbers. Resources with a range of topics need to be classified using a library policy that determines how they should be classified. Sometimes this might be the first named subject, at other times it might be the subject with the most content in the resource.
I found at the end of this research my position had moved and was feeling more of a ‘fence sitter.’ I do want to make changes in my library with a combination of the two systems and embrace the best of both worlds. I have looked at my library layout and chosen better subject signage for the Non-Fiction collection. This has involved a careful weed of non-fiction and I have moved many books to a different Dewey number that made more sense relevant to the ages of our students and our collection. The pressing question that we asked for each title was, where will it most likely to be discovered when browsing, without using the library catalogue? I have decided to keep our fiction collection arranged by the author but am planning to buy genre stickers to add to the spines of the collection. Some books will have a maximum of two stickers to deal with that problem of categorising books that cross genres. Our borrowing statistics are very high and the reading culture is very strong for our 7 to 11 year olds that my library serves. Therefore, the work in moving the whole collection into genres is not warranted. However, if I was working in a Senior School Library, where the reading tends to taper off, then it is something I would consider, with more research and perhaps trialling a small section. In the meantime, all of our libraries will continue to use aspects of genrefication by promoting their collection in innovative and resourceful ways. with focus collections and displays. However, making displays does not make the books searchable using the LMS so the focus will be to continue to maintain an excellent and up to date library catalogue so that resources are readily searchable, using appropriate subject headings, which may include genres. Students search online when locating information, so those same skills should be transferred into the library when searching. Lesson instruction must involve how to use the library catalogue as it is part of an important information literacy toolkit.
The 21st century has brought about drastic changes in the information environment and libraries have rapidly evolved. I believe that successful libraries will have a combination of systems which allows for flexibility to respond to their user’s demands. And now to move to the next stage, ordering those genre stickers!
References
Bojanowski, S., & Kwiecien, S. (2013). One Library’s Experience. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 20–21. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761319&site=ehost-live
Buchter, H. (2013). Dewey Vs Genre Throwdown. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 48–55. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761325&site=ehost-live
Dickinson, G. K. (2013). The Way We Do the Things We Do. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 4–6. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761315&site=ehost-live
Jameson, J. (2013). A Genre Conversation Begins. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 10–13. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761317&site=ehost-live
Harris, C. (2012). Summer project: Kill Dewey. The Digital Shift School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/08/k-12/summer-project-kill-dewey/
Harris, C. (2013). library classification 2020. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 14–19. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761318&site=ehost-live
Kaplan, T. B., Giffard, S., Still-Schiff, J., & Dolloff, A. K. (2013). One Size DOES NOT Fit All. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 30–37. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761321&site=ehost-live
Kindschy, H. E. (2015, January 13). Time to ditch dewey? Shelving systems that make sense to students. Retrieved September 25, 2018, from http://www.readandshine.com/2015/01/13/time-to-ditch-dewey-shelving-systems-that-make-sense-to-students-learning-commons-model-part-4/
Panzer, M. (2013). DEWEY: how to make it work for you. Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 22–29. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761320&site=ehost-live
Pendergrass, D. J. (2013). Dewey or Don’t We? Knowledge Quest, 42(2), 56–59. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=91761326&site=ehost-live
Rodgers, L. (2018). Give Your Circulation a Lift: If you want your books to fly off the shelves, check out these ideas. School Library Journal, 64(7), 24. Retrieved from ProQuest Central database. (Accession No. 2059523653)
Snipes, P. R. (2015). Concrete to Abstract: Growing past Genre into Dewey. Library Media Connection, 33(4), 26–29. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=iih&AN=100272012&site=ehost-live
Ward, M., & Saarti, J. (2018). ARTICLE Reviewing, Rebutting, and Reimagining Fiction Classification. Routledge Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 56(4), 317-329. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2017.1411414