In the Dewey Decimal System (DDS), biographies are listed within each subject area. This does make sense to me for a larger scale library operation. On the other hand, in our small library our patrons like to go to the Biography shelves to find a great biography to read, and yet it would help to break down our biography classification a bit instead of lumping them all together.
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*What are the pros and cons for the following idea?
Place all biographies together on a bookcase, but grouped/sectioned into types.
So all biographies label with a "B" and then continue the call number according to its designated DDS call number.
Some sectioned biographies . . .
Missionary Biographies
Biblical Biographies
Conversion Biographies (Conversion from ____ to Christianity)
More than one person/Groups (920)
Still have a general biography with the "B" only.
Example: instead of the call number beginning with "920", it would start with "B 920".
Some patrons really love the Biography section of our library, but it could use a bit more work to make it patron-friendly -- the reason for my thinking of this option.
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Your opinion/thoughts?
Replies
All of our bios are together If it is one person it is AB MOO for adults biography Lottie Moon. If it is a collection of Bios then it is A 920 and the authors name these are shelved right next to the others on their own shelf. Same is true for the children's biographies only with a J
I don't but missionary biographies in the 200s because there are just so many 200s that they tend to get overlooked
I had not considered putting the others there too but it is a good idea
Adair, for the special biographies I place a "B" before each Dewey Decimal number & then add /092 for a single bio or /0922 for collective. Then the first 3 letters of the author's surname.
For example:
B 266./092 --- denotes "Biography" & 266 for "Missions" & /092 for "single biography"
Last part of call number is the author's surname {1st three letters},
Right now we have Special Interest Biographies as follows:
1. Missions
2. Sports & Games (Outside & Inside)
3. Persecution
4. Mennonite & Related Churches --- our denomination
5. Conversion (from ____ to Christianity)
General Biographies
Single ---- B & the 1st three letters of the biographee's surname
Collective -- B 920 & 1st three letters of author's / compiler's surname
To clarify, this is Adult Biographies only. Not sure what I'll do with the Youth Biographies, but plan to keep the Junior & Children Biographies simple --- without special interest biographies.
We just lump our biographies all under 92, but your idea is a good one if you find that people need help finding specific types of biographies.
Thanks, Debbie.
Already, the sectioned Biographies drew in interest.
I like your idea of separating books by areas such as missionary biographies, Biblical biographies, etc. You could add a lot of other areas too depending on the type of books in your collection. We could, for instance, add American history biographies, athlete biographies, etc.
Thanks, Paul. I'm glad if my posted idea makes sense to you!
You're right. Librarians can form fewer or more sections to best accommodate the patrons' needs. I like the flexibility of it.
I guess if a future librarian chooses to do differently, they could simply place the biographies in their related subject instead of on the biography bookcase. The "B" could remain with the specific DDS call number.