Library Books

Have you gone to a library and looked for a book to read? If you are just browsing, it likely doesn't matter if the books are in order or not. BUT, if you are looking for a certain book, there is a lot of frustration for you and the librarian when it is in the library somewhere, but not on the shelf where it is supposed to be.

Heritage International School has a library of about 3500 books. The new volunteer librarian, who comes from a family of librarians, almost pulled out her hair when she discovered that every section of the library was so badly misfiled that you couldn't be certain of finding anything!!

With the help of the older students she is refiling and reshelving all the books. Each section, elementary, junior, adult and selected adult have been taken off the shelves and are in the process of being sorted, refiled with some pulled out for repair or discard.

For about 6 hours I helped. These are some of the things I found:
Dr. Seuss and Arthur books cataloged as Junior fiction;
books cataloged by the first three letters of the title or of the author's first name;
adult fiction in the junior section and vice-versa;
books on the shelf that are not even cataloged into the library (maybe there is a book fairy adding to the collection?);
and of course, non-fiction and fiction in both sections.

For those of us who value books for all the wonderful stories, information, photos and insights, this new, short-term volunteer is a huge blessing. Now, if the kids can learn to help keep things in order and the librarian who comes next works to keep the order, it will be time well spent.