[Publib] Re: shelving short stories

[Andy Barnett]

We went around and around on this for a couple iterations. This is where we 
ended up. Short story collections are shelved within the Fiction collection 
under SHORT, that is between authors SHI and SHU.  Books by single authors 
who write short stories, whether they write non-short fiction, remain in 
the regular alphabet. This gives us a place to take students and patrons 
who want/need a short story. It preserves "like shelved with like" but 
doesn't highlight short stories, which frankly don't generate the use to 
justify a separate collection.  OTOH, we do have separate collections for 
Classics, Fantasy and Christian Fiction.

We do the same thing with collections of short horror fiction, which is 
shelved under HORROR as an author. The shelves of horror short stories have 
enough mass so that patrons find it and return to it, which they would not 
have if they were shelved under the title. We considered having a Horror 
collection, but it lacks critical mass and would have to include a lot of 
what we consider suspense.


Andy Barnett, Asst. Director            McMillan Memorial Library
490 East Grand Ave. Wisconsin Rapids, WI  54494
                 www.mcmillanlibrary.org
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that 
matter.  -  Martin Luther King, Jr.