Hello world,
Today I came across a really good resource about the growing trend to genrify the library collection
http://genrefication.weebly.com/
Sannwald (2015) does a great job balancing arguments on the advantages and disadvantages of moving away from Dewey and into the world of genrefied text. Some points that I found quite interesting (especially that I am a primary school teacher) include:
- Using the Dewey Decimal system is a struggle in a primary school context because the majority of your patrons do not know how to read decimals and three digit numbers.
- Using gentrified categories builds better information searching skills (because the same category can be used in a google search) than Dewey which is exclusively a library cataloging scheme.
- Having the flexibility of making your own categories makes shelving easier and allows for trending texts to be grouped together reducing the time needed to “hunt.”
Some schools are taking the best of both worlds by implementing a Dewey lite approach, which I also found interesting.
If I am lucky enough to have free reign in my future library, I will definitely genrify my texts (especially the fiction) and possibly implement a Dewey lite approach in non-fiction. The biggest challenge would be the initial labelling and reclassifying but, like all things, invest early and reap the rewards in the future.
Sannwald, S (2015). In Defence of Library Genrefication. http://genrefication.weebly.com/