How Should You Maintain Your Collection? (and Other Burning Cataloging Questions)

We had some interesting topics and conversations in my class discussion board this week around cataloging (go figure!). There was lots of back and forth about the feasibility of truly ditching Dewey (as I mentioned in my last blog post) and some interesting perspectives on how a librarian should add to her collection, specifically what the non-fiction/fiction breakdown should be and how this varies based on student age.

I set off on some good old internet searching to find some additional perspectives on this particular topic, and I stumbled on some great stuff that I don't want to forget when I need it:

• Keeping Your Library Collection Smelling F.R.E.S.H! - A blog post from Library Girl includes a very handy set of criteria on both why it is important to weed through your collection and how to assess which items in your collection should be tossed. Bonus: Printable handout addressing the "how"
• Mighty Little Librarian - This blog was a treasure trove of good info, so much that I officially added it  to my blog roll. The author, a middle school librarian from Baton Rouge, is another proponent of library "genrefication" (i.e. Ditching Dewey), and has a whole series of blog posts dedicated to how she accomplished this in her library. Upon further investigation of her blog, I found awesome posts on social media in education, digital citizenship lessons, and creating a March Madness bracket for the most popular books in her library. Can't wait to see what is to come!
• The End of Nonfiction - An interesting blog post from the SLJ's "The Digital Shift" points out the inherent confusion in classifying books in fiction, nonfiction and reference and advocates for new terminology that better correlates with the Common Core (one suggestion: arrange books by whether they are trying to "tell me a story" or "teach me about something)

While cataloging itself is certainly nothing to write home about, I have enjoyed these past two weeks and having the opportunity to think about the book part of being a librarian. While the technology piece is certainly important, I've also been drawn to this field because of my love of books and finding ways to share that with others, so it's fun to read about how others are making the most of their own collections.