WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SUBJECTING

YOUR TEENS TO:THE NONFICTION SWITCH

Lindsey TomsuHaley Christensen

Keyahna WoodSarah Kreber

Background

In the beginning . . . weeding in 2009 and 2010

November 2010 – TAB created Weeding in 2010 - What teens said

about NF October 2011 – Stats dismal

What do I weed when nothing is going out? November 2011 – Took the stats to

TAB

Statistics

October 2010 - 2011

Teen Fiction Collection

Statistics

1,990 Teen Fiction Books

5,136 Total Fiction Circulation

Statistics

1,523 Individual Books Circulated

 467 Individual Books Did Not

Statistics

80% Circulation Rate of the Teen Fiction

Collection Between October 2010 – October

2011

Statistics

October 2010 – 2011

Teen Nonfiction Collection

Statistics

1,910 Teen NF Books 

2,065 Total NF Circulation

Statistics

805 Individual Books Circulated

 1,105 Individual Books Did Not

Statistics

Of the 1,910 NF books:

1,539 were General NF

371 were Graphic Novels/Manga Series

StatisticsOf the 371 GNM, 336 of these books

circulated accounting for 1,376 of the NF circ total (70%)

Of the 1,539 other NF books, 469 of these circulated accounting for 689

of the NF circ total (30%)

With 336 of the 371 GNM collection moving, the total circ of just that

small part of the collection was 90%

Statistics

Which meant . . .

Only 42% of the entire NF collection circulated

TAB’s Possible Soultions

Heavily weed the collection getting rid of “dead” books (which would have been more than 1,000 books)

Heavily weed the NF and be more high-interest

Make the NF area GNM only and move all other books to children/adult collections

Move from Dewey to Subject Classification

How TAB Helped

Weeding low-interest books Meeting with vendors and looking at

catalogs for new high-interest books Developing a subject classification system Categorizing the remaining books Making new signage Weeding the old books Shifting the collection Physically changing the labels Checking out books under the new system Continued maintenance

New Subject Classifications

Graphic Novels and Manga moved from 741.5 to a prominent spot at the beginning of the teen nonfiction area.

Given a whole new category in the catalog: GNM

To save space and make the area more interesting to the eye, large series were “pancaked”

“Pancaking”

New Subject Classifications ART (Art)

BAB (Babysitting) COO (Cooking) CRA (Crafts) DIS (Diseases & Disorders) EDU / FIN (Education & Finance) FIL / MUS (Animation/Film/Music) GAM / TEC (Gaming & Technology) GEO (Geography) GOV (Government) HEA / BEA / FAS (Health, Beauty & Fashion) HIS (History) HOL (Holocaust) MYT / PAR (Mythology & Paranormal) POP (Pop Culture) REA (Real Life Topics) REL (Relationships) SOC (Social Science) SPO (Sports) STA (States) WRI / LIT / LAN (Writing, Literature & Language)

New Subject Classifications

SCI = Science Broken into 10 subdivisions

SCI-AST = Astronomy SCI-BOT = Botany SCI-CHE = Chemistry SCI-EAR = Earth Science SCI-ENV = Environmental Science SCI-GEO = Geology SCI-HUM = Human Anatomy SCI-LIF = Life Sciences SCI=PHY = Physics SCI-ZOO = Zoology

Original Teen NF Area

New Signage

New Organization

New Organization

Results

The switch was completed during Christmas vacation in December 2011.

In just one month nearly 300 books (nearly 50% of the previous year’s whole circulation number for non-GNM NF books) went out.

Results – A Year Later

October 2011 – October 2012

Circulation in the new NF area

Results

1,487 Books in Teen NF Collection

3,339 Total NF Circulation

Results

Of those 1487 books . . .

1,012 circulated

475 did not (this includes 100 brand new books)

Much better than 1,105

Results

Total Circulation of the Teen NF Collection:

2010 – 2011 = 40%2011 – 2012 = 70%

Switching to subject weeded out the books gathering dust and made a

more high-interest collection ultimately increasing circulation 30%

Happy Teens

Discussion

Potential Topics: Why was the collection suffering Why we went with subject classification How we made the system work How other staff members and patrons

felt How the teens felt Open Q&A panel with TAB members

Contact

Lindsey Tomsu & Members of the TABTeen CoordinatorLa Vista Public Library9110 Giles RoadLa Vista, NE 68128402-537-3900ltomsu@cityoflavista.org