Library location can affect a book’s visibility

During class discussion this week for LIS 5250, one of the ideas that came up was books that formerly sat unused on a shelf suddenly being checked out by students. One thing I took to heart when reading the CREW manual was the idea that it was acceptable to move books to a different (but still relevant) location that got better visibility.

(CREW, by the way, stands for Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding.)

Among informational books, I found a book about “dog detectives” shelved in the 300s; its subject number had been related to police operations and the book never circulated. I changed its record in the catalog and moved it to 636.7 (the Dewey classification for “Dogs”) and almost immediately students started checking it out. This week, I tried the same tactic with a book I found in the 790s, about a dog-sledding team, which was not being read. It too has now been moved to 636.7.

Visibility isnt the only motivator for changing a book’s location; customer preference can also play a role.

At the library where I work, students expressed very emphatically that they only wanted to find cookbooks under 641.5; they didn’t want books mixed in that addressed historical preparation of food but didn’t actually have recipes. I found a Dewey number in the 300s that related to food traditions and moved the non-cookbooks there.