Shelving By Dewey Guidelines
June 28th, 2007This is about as far from Library 2.0 as you can get (and perhaps short-lived), but I created a quickie guide for putting books on the shelf according to the Dewey Decimal System.
My library has gotten a few new pages (people who put returned books back on the shelves) and shelf-readers (people who straighten the shelves and make sure the books are actually in order) recently, and when I started training them, found that we had no documentation on the Dewey Decimal System. We had a Dewey test they needed to pass before they were allowed to work, but nothing with which they could prepare for the test.
So I made up the handout below, as a quick overview/introduction to Dewey, and also a reference guide for them to keep with them in the stacks until they get the hang of it. It's designed for double-sided printing, and some of our shelvers even laminated it.
This handout is tailored for the Chelmsford Library, but feel free to modify the Word version to work best for your library. If you have any questions (or notice any mistakes), please let me know.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I love your shelving directions, may I adapt for my library? Jill
October 29th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Absolutely – feel free to do whatever it takes to make it work for you. If you need any help, let me know.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Excellent. Thanks for making it available, this is a real time saver for me.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I hope you don’t mind if I include your instructions in my Moodle (online class) for my library aides (Hammond High School) to try to figure out how to shelve books. Some of them seem not to know their alphabet! I haven’t trusted them much with shelving.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
@Rose: Not at all – I hope it helps.
July 27th, 2012 at 7:30 am
Thanks for posting this – it has saved me loads of time!
Lindsay
Manchester, UK
September 29th, 2012 at 7:52 am
Thank you so much! I am the new librarian at a public school where the library has been shuttered for years and is therefore in total disrepair. I’m adapting this to use with the parent volunteers I’ve started to recruit. So helpful!