Genrefying the Everybody Section

Why not genrefy the picture books?
It seemed like an obvious move in an elementary school library with over 800 students. The collection was large, new, and up to date, but a fair number of students were not yet reading on grade level.

Classroom teachers would regularly request that I pull books for them around a certain theme or topic - especially read-aloud picture books that were appropriate for various grade levels (our campus served PK - 5) - but the books in the Everybody section were alphabetized by author's last name. If a teacher stopped by during lunch and tried to grab a few books on the fly, they would need to know exactly what they needed, or refer to the digital Virtual Book Rooms I created - but never had time to update with the latest titles.

When our youngest students visited the library, I made sure to pull some books face up on tables to increase browsability and minimize choice fatigue (it helped the older ones, too). I had multiple displays, including a semi-permanent superheroes area and a semi-permanent fairies, unicorns, and princesses area, and these were hugely popular. I experimented with bins and colored dots and an early reader graphic novel section. And after almost four years of students coming in and asking "Where are the funny books?" or "Where are the scary books?" and explaining that we didn't shelve them that way, I started wondering why we didn't.

Genrefication in the Picture Book Sections
I designed a complete genrefication system for my elementary library, and I was ready to deploy it, but I switched jobs before I got to implement it. I know every campus is unique, but I really wish I had been able to see that genrefied system in action, because I think it would have increased student independence, connected more students to books they wanted to read, and it would have been a friendlier set-up for teachers trying to find read-aloud mentor texts. Instead, I joined a middle school campus with a much smaller collection of picture books and completely different needs.

One hiccup was that in that in my former district, we did not use Destiny, so we could not use local campus-based sub-locations. Since it's necessary to have the catalog location reflect where each book really "lives" on the shelves (see some of my other guidelines for making genrefication work in your school library), and since no other elementary schools in the district were ready to genrefy their picture book sections yet, there was an implementation pause. Our district library leaders wanted to ensure we weren't cluttering the catalog with huge numbers of dropdown options, and decided to develop committees to have uniform sub-location names. That way, campus libraries that chose to genrefy would have sub-location name options with some standardization (which made sense, given that many of our students moved frequently from one district school to another).

However, since I already did all the work of determining the categories and figured out a system for setting it up, I wanted to share what I developed in case it helps other librarians and schools. You can read about my very detailed process for genrefying nonfiction books in this blog post, but I actually built that experience on the process I followed to genrefy the everybody section in my former library.

TL;DR - Steps to Genrefy Picture Books
The shortest description of the whole process was:

• Determine large "neighborhood" categories for books in the Everybody section
  
• Temporarily mark individual books to assign them to these categories to get a feel for how many fit each section, and which sub-categories would be necessary
  
• Name the sub-categories and consider logical placement and order for sections, given related concepts, likely traffic, and supervisory sight lines
  
• Design genre stickers to add just above the traditional spine labels to indicate the sub-category of each book
  
• Apply the stickers to the books, physically re-arrange the books, and update the catalog to reflect the new locations
  
• Create helpful signage
  
• Plan workshops and lesson activities to familiarize staff and students with the genrefied sections
  

• Refine categories and signage using observations, surveys, frequent questions, needs, collection changes, and other data
  

Genrefication Categories for Picture Books
First, I recognized that I would need to sort the books into categories and have a sense of where they would go before I just started moving everything around. I also knew I wanted to use one-inch spine labels above the traditional existing one-inch spine labels, because that was the same method we used in our genrefied fiction section. But before I was ready to put stickers on books, I needed to decide what categories we needed. And to do that, I had to look at the books.

I was lucky that I'd been at that school for four years. I knew the students' needs, the teachers' needs, and I knew the collection and the elementary curriculum pretty well, so I came up with a list of several large categories and assigned colors to them.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to use colorful dots or colored spine labels at first, but I realized that I would probably want more sub-categories than I would be able to distinguish with different colors. So instead of assigning each sub-category an individual color, I came up with larger "neighborhood" categories, like books about the arts, or adventure books. Ultimately, I decided to use Craftzilla masking tape to color-code each picture book according to its genre, or neighborhood category. I worried that students might pick at the tape and remove it, undoing hours of sorting work - but that never happened, even though many of my taped books were checked out during the process.

I spent several hours on weekends and after school with a general list of neighborhood categories and a color code. I didn't try to tape every single book (unlike my nonfiction genrefication project), but I worked through several different sections of the everybody shelves to establish what a reasonable percentage of each genre might be. This would give me a good idea about how many shelves I would need to devote to each section before I moved any of the books.

Although my collection was fairly new and up to date, this color-coding process was also an opportunity to weed some books - particularly duplicate copies and books that had low circulation since the campus opened.

My genre categories for the Everybody books, with examples:

You & Me
Essentially, this was a social studies category.
Subcategories in this "neighborhood" of books included:

• Community - maps, history, cities, holidays

Example: The Scrambled States of America, by Laurie Keller

• Family - family relationships, heritage, identity

Example: Saturday by Oge Mora

• School - includes first days of school, and stories mostly about school topics

Example: Lena's Shoes Are Nervous by Keith Calabrese

• Getting Along - targets relationships, especially topics like friendship, sharing, communication

Example: Food Group picture book series by Jory John (The Bad Seed, The Sour Grape)

• Feelings - specifically addressing emotions like anger and frustration

Example: Ruby Finds a Worry by Tom Percival
Within the Feelings section, there was a Tough Stuff subset of books, mostly about dealing with loss - helpful to have on hand when a parent, student, or staff member needed a specific topic, even if most students might not actively browse that area on a regular basis
Example: Where Lily Isn't, by Julie Paschkis

• Be Your Best Self - books about daring to dream, persisting, working hard, being confident in yourself

Example: You Matter, by Christian Robinson

• Maker Mindset - although a lot of this overlapped with Be Your Best Self, our elementary campus had a STEAM vision, so these books specifically addressed idea generation, problem-solving, and refining prototypes

Example: Made by Maxine by Ruth Spiro; The Questioneers series by Andrea Beaty; Jabari Tries by Gaia Cornwall

This was by the far the most challenging neighborhood to sub-divide and name. You might be thinking that there would be tons of overlap between School and Getting Along categories, or Feelings and Getting Along, or Identity (Family) and Be Your Best Self, for example. There was overlap, particularly in this section, but I made a guideline for myself not to over-think it, and made the best decision based on knowing the book and how my students looked for books. It was surprising how the books actually slotted pretty neatly into these categories; there are a lot of elementary books about You and Me topics!

The Feelings and Tough Stuff books, as a section, would more likely be used by counselors for lessons or individual sessions, while the Getting Along books might be a classroom teacher's read-aloud approach to re-setting class expectations. Of course any student could encounter them and check them out, too, but being grouped together would make it much easier to access these kinds of books to share with student groups at point of need.

The next neighborhood was science - adjacent to the Maker Mindset books from the You & Me neighborhood. These topics included:

• Health and Human Body

Example: Skulls! by Blair Thornburgh

• Animals (separate from the nonfiction animal books)

Examples: Senorita Mariposa by Ben Gundersheimer; Amara and the Bats by Emma Reynolds

• Plants (again, they might contain facts, but they weren't nonfiction books)

Example: A Place to Grow by Stephanie Bloom

• Machines & Energy

Example: On the Go Awesome by Lisl H. Detlefson

• Sky/Weather/Seasons  - includes nature and environmentalism; sky includes topics like properties of the Earth, sun, and moon

Example: Mira Forecasts the Future by Kell Andrews

The next neighborhood was math
I moved the nonfiction math books to the everybody section because they were never circulated from their location in nonfiction. I included traditional picture books mixed in with nonfiction math books, and I sorted these into two categories:

• Math: Basic Concepts - anything about counting, shapes, patterns, number sense, basic measurement, or things that might be addressed in grades PK - 2

Examples: Smiley's Dream Book by Jeff Smith; The Perfect Square by Michael Hall

• Math - more advanced concepts, like the Fibonacci sequence, or complex number sense or measurement discussions

The next neighborhood was humor
There is a lot of overlap in the Getting Along and Adventure books with humor, but if it mainly exists to be silly instead of meet some other goal, it would fit here. Think Llama Destroys the World by Jonathan Stutzman. I knew kids would rush to this section.

The next neighborhood was adventure
Here, I included

• Traditional adventure stories about quests and journeys

Example: Space Dog by Mini Grey

• Mysteries

Example: There Are No Bears in This Bakery by Julia Sarcone-Roach

• Sports-themed stories

Examples: The Dino Sports series by Lisa Wheeler; The Legend of Gravity by Charly Palmer

• Scary stories

Example: Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds

• Superheroes

Example: Name-recognition Marvel or DC superhero books

• Stories with Sparkle - mermaids, unicorns, frequent use of glitter, not necessarily any book about princesses, but sometimes princess books fit

The next neighborhood was Reading and Writing
Many of these excellent books were purchased as read-aloud mentor texts for teachers, but because our collection was so extensive, it was hard for individual teachers to find them for specific purposes. Categories included:

• Tales - fairy tales, folk tales, and fractured tales from the Everybody section (note that this area was adjacent to stories with sparkle, in the event of a princess connection)

Example: Watch Out for Wolf by Anica Mrose Rissi

• Book Love & Book Parts - books about loving reading and libraries, books that talk explicitly about story elements or format (like the table of contents), or story conventions

Example: Dreamers by Yuyi Morales; see additional examples

• Words & Writing - books focusing on use of figurative language, writing craft, and words, books using letter-writing as a key feature

Examples: My Pencil and Me  by Sara Varon
Tap, Tap, Boom, Boom by Elizabeth Bluemle - note: this could go under weather, but when there was a conflict, I tried to choose the thing it was the best example of. So while it could be a fun story about rain approaching for young children studying weather types, I read it as a more powerful example of onomatopoeia in action.

• Alphabet books, many of which were pulled from Nonfiction and never got checked out shelved among their topic areas there

Example: P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by Raj Halder and Chris Carpenter

• Early Readers - short, small books for newly independent readers
• Series Books - book baskets full of popular picture book series, if a whole series did not logically all fit in another category. This solves the problem of separating series books when some are humorous and some are sad, as well as series books written by multiple authors.
• I did have room for a category called Stories, where I planned to fit any books that did not seem to go anywhere else

The last neighborhood was The Arts
Sub-sections included:

• Wordless Picture Books - see examples
• Unique Format - books with flaps, cutouts, and envelopes; books that you turn upside down halfway through - refers to a book's physical format (adjacent to the seek & find books)

Examples: Night Light by Nicholas Blechman; Who Done It? by Olivier Tallec; Postcards from Camp by Simms Taback

• Performing Arts - not nonfiction or biographies, but stories about kids experiencing music, theatre, or dance

Example: John's Turn by Mac Barnett

• Visual Arts - adjacent to the nonfiction crafts section

Example: Dakota Crumb, Tiny Treasure Hunter by Jamie Michalak

The Arts neighborhood was closest to the nonfiction crafts and nonfiction sports sections, which tend to be popular with readers who like to browse for books in the Everybody section. Various animal shelves (also popular with young readers) were along the next layer of nonfiction from the Everybody area.

Although I bounced these ideas off some people who thought this organization might not appeal to kids, I really disagreed. I think pulling some of the early nonfiction books like thematic alphabet books and math books into the Everybody section is a much better way of getting those books into kids' hands. I think genrefying funny, family, and adventure books in categories instantly makes kids more independent and capable of finding books they already know they will enjoy.

I also think that the more teachers read aloud to kids, the better, and since our curriculum is divided into disciplines, a nod to that makes it easier for classroom teachers and specialists to find read-alouds that tie to every curricular area, for every curricular unit. After all, there are some books that are fairly sophisticated, and librarians often purchase these expecting other teachers to use as read-alouds to spark discussions.

Further, we do kids a disservice when we think they can't access topics according to categories. Kids are fantastic at making connections, and why shouldn't kids love perusing books about author's craft, or science, or maps for their own reading pleasure?

I used Canva to design spine label stickers for each of these categories, and planned to design large signage and activities to introduce the new organization to students and staff.

In retrospect, it's good I didn't end up using these, since the text on the labels is not standardized, but I've considered the wording on those categories for a while and I'm still pretty good with those decisions.

Sample Spine Label Icons for the Everybody Books

I had an idea about backing the shelves in each assigned color code mural paper, or maybe covering the shelf ends and tops in that color-coded mural paper to help make each neighborhood a little clearer for users than signage alone. For example, the You & Me section was royal blue, and the Science neighborhood was green, and the Humor section was yellow. I am still not sure it's necessary to emphasize the neighborhood distinctions, though; it's possible the sub-category stickers already establish a vibe. Logical adjacent sub-categories allow users to browse topics of related interest and discover new things, and it also invites activity possibilities for students to start browsing in their comfort zone and then partner up with a classmate to "show off" a particular shelf area and what they like about it.

As you can see from my nonfiction genrefication project, the masking tape step to establish initial book numbers for categories is helpful. I actually loved that time I could put hands on individual books and discover - or re-discover possibilities with each title. The work led to a lot of read-aloud lesson ideas (so keep your notes ready if you attempt this process).

It took time to finalize the sub-categories and design each sticker to clearly, accurately, and respectfully represent ideas, and it would have taken more time to apply all the stickers, physically move all the books, and update their sub-locations in the catalog before familiarizing the school community with the new arrangement.

It would have been worth it.