There has been a lot of debate recently over weeding out the Dewey Decimal System in exchange for a more patron- and browsing-friendly Subject Classification System. Can this really work? What are the pros and cons of such a dramatic change? Join us to discover how the Teen Advisory Board of the La Vista Public Library implemented such a change in their teen department. This session will be presented by Lindsey Tomsu, the YA librarian, and Sarah Kreber, a member of the La Vista Public Library Teen Advisory Board, who played a huge part in making this project successful.

1. Lindsey Tomsu
Haley Christensen
Keyahna Wood
Sarah Kreber

2.  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

3. October
2010 - 2011
Teen Fiction Collection

4. 1,990 Teen Fiction Books
5,136 Total Fiction Circulation

5. 1,523 Individual
Books Circulated
467 Individual
Books Did Not

6. 80% Circulation Rate of the Teen
Fiction
Collection Between
October 2010 – October 2011

7. October
2010 – 2011
Teen Nonfiction
Collection

8. 1,910 Teen NF Books
2,065 Total NF Circulation

9. 805 Individual Books Circulated
1,105 Individual Books Did Not

10. Of the 1,910 NF books:
1,539 were General NF
371 were Graphic Novels/Manga
Series

11. Of 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%

12. Which meant . . .
Only 42% of the entire NF
collection circulated

13.  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

14.  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

15.  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”

17.  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)

18.  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

23.  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.

24. October 2011 – October 2012
Circulation in the
new NF area

25. 1,487 Books in Teen
NF Collection
3,339 Total NF Circulation

26. Of those 1487 books . . .
1,012 circulated
475 did not (this includes 100
brand new books)
Much better than 1,105

27. 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%

29.  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

30. Lindsey Tomsu & Members of the TAB
Teen Coordinator
La Vista Public Library
9110 Giles Road
La Vista, NE 68128
402-537-3900
ltomsu@cityoflavista.org