We are struggling with how to shelve our books published by Guidepost. They do not have an ISBN or Dewey system number. Does anyone have suggestions on how they categorize them on the shelf? Thank you in advance
kim Swisher - Hillside Christian Church, Wichita KS
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Our library does have several Guideposts series. When we weeded out all videocassettes, we had a turn-around unit that became empty. We use this for Guideposts. Since they are by different authors, instead of an author shelf label, we put the name of the series, like Annie's Attic Mysteries. They are numbered under the call label so they are then easy to keep up with.
I may look up the book on oclc classify. Often they will have a mumber. For Fiction I usually have three lines F/Series Name & its number in the series, & first three letters of the author's name.
I would echo the suggestion by Adair Elwing, coming up with a system that keeps each Guideposts series together. Use initials from the series title instead of author surname. For example, if your usual spine label for fiction is FIC/AUT (AUT being 1st 3 letters of author surname), for the series "Mysteries of Martha's Vineyard" you could create a label FIC/MMV-1, FIC/MMV-2, etc. "Secrets of Wayfarers Inn" would be FIC/SWI-1, FIC/SWI-2, etc. On a related note, this system can be modified to a 3-line label for use if you have multiple fiction series by a single author, such as Janette Oke. Her "Love Comes Softly" series would be FIC/OKE/LCS-1 and so on; "Canadian West" is FIC/OKE/CW-1; "Song of Acadia" series, FIC/OKE/SA-1. This not only keeps the author's work together, but also keeps each series in order.
Our system has an "enter manually" option if the book in question can't be found. I would use that, if a general search did not yield the information (for entering a book into our catalog), and I would label it FIC XXX - the first three letters of the author's name. If it's a series by a number of authors, I'd do the same thing, put a series label (for example, Cruise Ship Mysteries 1) at the top of the spine, and then shelve in the stacks as normal (so the series would not be altogether).
the ones that are series, Antiques Shop/Wayfarers and so on are also done by various authors so we havve the sets together spine labels are AF AAR ASM BK::9 ((adult fiction/ aurthor /series initals/ number in series) It just meant shifting a few books at the end of fiction in order to file them together as they were in fiction so already taking up space but you had to look all over to find them this way they are together and easier for people to find the next one in the series. As for ISBEN or Dewey if you have older books they don't have ISBENs either and while might use Dewey or Sears for non fiction books the fiction is AF/CF/MF/YF adult//children/middle readers 3rd up/youth 6th up reading level
Oh, different kind of books. I do not think we have many of these fiction books since we did a major weed for our future renovation. Please forgive my misunderstanding.
No problem. We shelve our books by Dewey number. I appreciate your response thank you
!
Do you mean the condensed books with more than one book contained or the series ones? I keep the series ones such as the Patchwork Mysteries and catalog just like other fiction. But do not keep the condensed books.
I guess I don't see a problem with Guidepost books . We catalog them in F with the series and then the authors. They are very light mystery fiction and sometimes we need that rather than murder and mayhem. They remind me of the old Grace Livingston Hill
books.
We look them up by subject matter ( i.e. Spring, Love (Valentine's day poems). I will say that it is sometimes a challenge to find a unifying topic! Good luck!
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