[Publib] Marketing Nonfiction

[Bookbitch]

I like your Dewey display ideas, especially for the topics you suggest.  I
do a Dewey specific display every April when I dust off the poetry books and
put them out, front and center.  
 
The problem is your knowledge of Dewey numbers doesn't allow patrons to
browse books they may want to read.  The numbers separate books that
pleasure readers would like to find together.  In my library, the travel
section is fairly large, most of an entire row of bookcases.  Books about
Americans living abroad which most people would read for pleasure are
shelved by their countries, so Under the Tuscan Sun is shelved along side
Fodors Italy, while Minka: My Farmhouse in Japan by John Roderick is shelved
with the guide books to Tokyo, and so forth.  For the most part, Dewey is
great at organizing, but it inhibits browsing. 
 
And how do you direct patrons to the "self help section"? Unless they want
to share that they are a recovering alcoholic, a battered spouse, suffering
from impotence or dealing with a bulimic daughter - those books are
scattered everywhere.
 
Stacy Alesi
Library Name *Censored*
Boca Raton, Florida
& MLIS student at USF
 
I am the BookBitch 
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  _____  

From: Kathleen Stipek [mailto:kstipek at aclib.us] 
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 10:18 AM
To: bookbitch at yahoo.com; Kathryn Knight; publib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Publib] Marketing Nonfiction


Me, I like Dewey, but that's partly because I enjoy showing off my knowledge
of the numbers.  Makes people think I'm 'way cleverer than I am, but it gets
me the occasional warm fuzzy, and these days, we should take them where we
can.  Why not use Dewey for displays?  Maybe 'Job Hunting?  Check out
650.14'  or 'Weather?  Check out 551'.  It could work to both show off
sections that don't get a lot of action and sections that you keep getting
asked about.  We've got to have some sort of a system to organize the stuff,
and at least Dewey is vaguely familiar to the general public.  Maybe we just
haven't figured out how to get it off the shelves and onto the displays.  
 
Kathleen Stipek
Alachua County Library District
401 East University Avenue
Gainesville, Florida 32601
352-334-3931 fax 352-334-3948
 
Non, merci.
--Cyrano de Bergerac

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