[Publib] Marketing Nonfiction - Lone voice in support of good ol' Dewey

Sat Jan 5 16:35:32 EST 2008

I feel the need to point out that I didn't say "that Dewey "sucks" at
organizing things." I said that "Dewey sucks at organizing NONFICTION FOR
PLEASURE READERS."  And it does.

I am not advocating anarchy at the library.  I'm merely suggesting that
while Dewey works perfectly well for some things, it doesn't work well for
everything.  Nothing is perfect, bookstore organization has its problems
too.  If you haven't read EVERYTHING IS MISCELLANEOUS by Weinberger, you may
want to take a look at it; it was one of my favorite reads of 2007.  Or if
you just want to invest an hour into it, watch his presentation here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2159021324062223592

I am delighted to hear that your library increased circulation this year. I
am a strong advocate of good customer service (for which I've been skewered
on this listserv) but numbers don't lie, do they.

The original question was about marketing nonfiction, which is what I was
attempting to address, and did so in several paragraphs.  One short
paragraph has hijacked this discussion  and turned it into the whole OMG SHE
WANTS TO KILL DEWEY.  Which I do.  :)

Stacy Alesi
Library Name *Censored*
Boca Raton, Florida
& MLIS student at USF

I am the BookBitch 
www.bookbitch.com 
Enter to win BLUE HEAVEN by CJ Box, THE CRAZY SCHOOL by Cornelia Read, IF
ANGELS FALL by Rick Mofina, 7 signed thrillers and lots more!

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Ericsson [mailto:ericssonp at krls.org] 
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 1:35 PM
To: kgs at bluehighways.com; publib at webjunction.org; BookBitch at yahoo.com
Subject: RE: [Publib] Marketing Nonfiction - Lone voice in support of good
ol' Dewey 

Well folks, I usually take a pass on being a lone voice in support of
classification systems for browsing at public libraries, but here we go.

In terms of Stacy's suggestion about organization methods - the real issue
is not that Dewey "sucks" at organizing things. Dewey does just fine. The
issue is that shelving or displaying an item can only be done once for an
item, but frequently an item has multiple facets or topics or subtopics.
Stacy may be happy with all the travel narratives shelved or displayed
together - another person will not find the item because they wanted a
travel book on Greece and it was not with the Greece travel books. The real
point is that there is absolutely no shelving system that works for
everybody - that is why we have catalogs with multiple access points for
author and title and subject and keyword searching that provide accurate
shelving indicators.

Since I "came out" (out of the tech services department and into public
services), I've worked at a few libraries that have wrestled with the
challenge of maintaining displays, marketing non-fiction, and trying to keep
our library relevant (dareIsay "cool").  We have done the displays, and the
mixing of fiction with non-fiction, and the mixing of print with non-print
and trying for that "bookstore" feel that we hear some people say they want.

A few displays are great, and can be managed well. The more displays there
are -- the more difficult it is to locate specific materials that are
needed. Displays in library are like my aftershave - less is more.

My experience tells me that there are significant trade-offs when we
emphasize random browsing and disregard classification & accurate shelving.
For whatever level of joy that is provided by unexpectedly finding things
through mixed displays, I see far more unhappiness for the patron that is
looking for specific known items and they cannot be readily located in the
vast numbers of loosely (or not at all) organized displays.  When the
catalog lists the item as available, and they cannot readily locate the item
-- and especially when the library staff cannot readily locate the item --
that patron leaves enormously frustrated.  When the volume of materials on
displays scattered around the library makes it more than a 2 minute search
to find one specific item, the patron is long gone.  If that happens more
than twice to a patron, the comment I hear is "I am done with this library".

At my library we do all kinds of things to minimize and manage the
frustration - we take the name and phone number or email address of the
patron and keep looking for it after they leave. 
We get cannot be found items from another branch in our region, which also
is a delay. To avoid the issue altogether we take online requests through
the catalog and do shelf searching and have materials waiting for patrons to
pick up. 
But when it takes staff 5 minutes to poke through displays around the
library for one item that is not found at its expected shelving location,
and we get about 50 -75 online requests per day through the catalog - well,
we've just increased our staff shelf searching time from an hour to five
hours a day. We do not have that kind of staff and volunteer time to do
shelf searching for online requests each day. Putting "display" 
status alerts on catalog entries takes time to manage and only marginally
effective, especially when the displays are mixed topics or mixed media.

So, thanks for the chat and letting me weigh-in on this age-old library
school topic. Its lunchtime on a Saturday and we're getting ready for our
afternoon children's program. Sneaky the clown will be here for magic and
reading.  Whatta great job this is. By the way Stacy - our circ has gone up
about 10% this past year, with modest book displays, but beefed up marketing
in the local paper, and an emphasis by staff on accurate and quick and
friendly customer service.

Paul

Paul Ericsson
Branch Manager, Bemidji Public Library
218-751-3963
ericssonp at krls.org

At 09:26 AM 1/5/2008, K.G. Schneider wrote:
>Finally, a comment about my pet peeve about libraries and nonfiction - 
>Dewey sucks at organizing nonfiction for pleasure readers.  So does 
>LOC.  Think bookstore!  Put the food memoirs together, the travel 
>narratives, action adventure, war stories - even just on display, mix 
>in some fiction too and watch your circulation rise.
>
>Stacy Alesi
>
>-----------
>
>Stacy, thank you! As someone who reads extensively and writes a little 
>in creative nonfiction (and had this genre as my concentration for an 
>MFA I finished in 2006), I wholeheartedly agree with this.
>
>I had a guest post on Brevity on this topic:
>
>http://brevity.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/is-the-essay-dead-the-free-rang
>e-lib
>rarian-responds/
>
>I read just about anything, and enjoy good fiction, but for sheer 
>readability, a lot of nonfiction kicks fiction's fanny out the door. I 
>am reading a lot of food writing right now (as I'm about to take an 
>online class in the topic) and have been joyously plowing my way 
>through Ruth Reichl (Tender at the Bone, Comfort me with Apples, Garlic 
>and Sapphires), Jeffrey Steingarten (The Man Who Ate Everything), MFK 
>Fisher (The Gastronomical Me), and the Best Food Writing series (ed. 
>Holly Hughes). I have also read every "Best American Essays" (which 
>started in the 1980s) and have been collecting this series as well for 
>personal use. These are
>(generally) terrific (I have a few axes to grind with the 2007 BAE, but 
>I still strongly recommend it). Readers who like short stories will 
>often like these essays as well.
>
>Warning, shameless self-promotion: an essay of mine will be featured in 
>volume 2 of "The Best Creative Nonfiction," edited by Lee Gutkind 
>(volume 1 is here: 
>http://www.creativenonfiction.org/thejournal/bestcnf/bestcnf1.htm
>-- excellent stuff -- I wish more than 51 libraries showed holdings for 
>it in WorldCat).
>
>Karen G. Schneider
>kgs at freerangelibrarian.com
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Publib mailing list
>Publib at webjunction.org
>http://lists.webjunction.org/mailman/listinfo/publib