It was nice to finally meet Maria, we've heard so much about her.
Todays' class was very interesting, albeit short! We had a good discussion about this weeks topic. I had no idea that the Harry Potter books are shelved in Monash under Literature and given Dewey numbers - because thesis are being written about them. Who woulda thunk it! I looked for 2 other fiction (popular) novels - Animal Farm and Eragon. Neither of them are filed under literature; the Harry Potter novels really changed the world in regards to children reading, which is why they've been more or less singled out for special treatment I think.
Labeling and Shelving arrangements.
The most common arrangement for fiction in schools and public libraries is in Call Number order, however I think there is a gradual shift occurring, particularly in schools, to shelving them in genre order. When I spoke to the librarian at St. Peters last year, their shelves had been recently re-organised into genre order and it was working well, encouraging more reading. This requires the end-processing to include genre stickers, which makes it easy for a patron to find the type of book they are looking for.
In a school library (using St. Peters as a guide), certain of the books are restricted to borrowers aged over 15; whereas in a public library they are divided into larger sections: early readers, children, teen, young adult are the most common terms used. They are placed on the shelves in a fashion where the children can reach them easily, according to the age group, and most libraries will have story time, where an adult will read to the children. This encourages an early attraction to books, which will hopefully continue as they grow. Having easy access to books is much more likely to facilitate a love of reading than none.
Classification of Literary works in Academic Libraries
Literary works are catalogued under the dewey classification 823. I can't really tell at what point they are classified - it may be once they have theses written about them, it can't just be by popularity or according to prizes (eg, Booker prize), as I searched for several other novels which were prize-winners in their day and they had not been allocated a Dewey number. I would like to understand this point better and intend to investigate this more fully. For example, in the Latrobe University catalogue I searched for 2 George Orwell novels, 1984 had a Dewey classification No., but Animal Farm just has a call number, not a Dewey number. So; you'd really have to know whether it was considered as literature or just a novel to find it. Confusing!
Subject headings for literary works including fiction
I found this information on http://lib.guides.umd.edu/content.php?pid=132359&sid=3308846
Subject Headings for Literature fall into several categories, offering many ways to search for information on an author, work, genre, or time period:
- Individual Literary Authors
- Literary Works by Author
- Literary Works by Title
- [Name or Topic] in Literature
- Literatures by Region/Genre
- Authors by Nationality
- Miscellaneous Subject Headings
I couldn't find any information regarding the Literature subject headings in Australia, I would assume they follow the Library of Congress rules, as we do in so many ways.
Non-English Literature and ESL (English as a second language) shelving
From what I can find, shelving for books which are not in English are categorised firstly by language and then by author. For example, a book by Yibin Jiang in Chinese would be catalogued and shelved with the label CHI JIA. This was the most information I could find, but I will look next time I'm in a large library.
My local library does not have a LOTE collection (in Carrum Downs) however I'm not sure about the Frankston branch. I don't go there very often but will try to make the effort over the holidays and check it there.
Whew, this entry took me ages, it was quite hard to find adequate information to answer the dot points for week 9!
Til next time.....
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