To Genrify or not to Genrify? The answer is obvious

Usually when I read an article by an experienced Librarian and/or Library Teacher – much less a School Library Coordinator for a city's Department of Education’s Department of Library Services, as this one is – I often agree with much and, at minimum, at least part of it.

Not this time.

I utterly reject Leanne Ellis' "Genrify Your Catalog, Not Your Collection!" article, for it flies in the face of all my experience as a middle school librarian of a school of 500+ 6th graders. In fact, it flies in the face of all my library experience period, which is more than one might think since both my parents are Harvard University Librarians (cataloging is literally my father's job), my Aunt was a public librarian, and basically the entire family otherwise are teachers. Now behold as I take this article down section by section.

"I still recall with a shudder the second school library I worked at in NYC: a small, cramped space that needed to be weeded, a large circulation desk taking up valuable real estate in a 500 square-foot room, and worst of all, a collection organized by category like a bookstore. And it wasn’t in any logical order. The music section was not by the arts but by science. The fairytales were separate from the folktales. The catalog was fine – the books were listed by their correct call numbers; they weren’t placed on the shelves that way. The result was a hard time finding books for students when they wanted them and months of work reorganizing the collection to be searchable and accessible. Ugh. The problem wasn’t the intention of my predecessor; she arranged the books according to a system that made sense to her. But the result was the problem because it made sense only to her."

Let us be clear here, fairytales being separate from folktales and the music section being in science rather than art is obviously illogical placement. Yet that is not why the books were hard to find. I know because when I first came to my current school we had a similarly illogical arrangement issue yet, while my supervisor and I went on to fix it, there was never any difficulty finding books. Why? Because, unlike in the library Ellis describes above, the books were properly shelved by call number. Odd subject placement just means one has to walk more between shelves when browsing and searching, but books that are not shelved by call number turns browsing and searching into a nightmare. Ellis' problem was not that the genre placement was odd but that her predecessor was a horrible shelver.

"Why Genrifying Your Collection Makes It Harder to Find Things
And therein is the fault with genrifying our libraries on the shelves; a title one person might classify as a mystery might be considered romance to another. Or what if it’s both? Or both and also dystopian? You can add different tags if the book is in your library catalog. The book probably has multiple subject listings. Students and teachers have various search pathways: keyword, subject, title, and an advanced Boolean search. But it only has one location on the shelf."

As a matter of fact, my supervisor and I are currently genrifying the library and naturally confronted this exact issue. So what? Genre-crossrover books are as common as otherwise and, point of order, the solution to this so-called problem is laughably simple. If you decide a mystery-romance book better fits the Mystery genre, then you only physically tag it as Mystery – that way you automatically know what section it goes in. So do we just ignore the romance element of the book? Hardly. My supervisor and I create digital Resource Lists of books of all types and genres, so we would simple add this mystery-romance book to both the Mystery and Romance lists. In fact, I just finished tagging the books for our new Mystery Section two weeks ago. Wont this make the book hard to find? Not if you add a digital marker designating it as belonging in Mystery.

"Teach students to find books they want
Students need to have an informational, organizational structure that they can learn and understand. We can’t unpack the complex algorithms underlying the Internet and social media. Still, we can give learners the knowledge to empower themselves to find books on the shelves they want to read. And we can teach them searching strategies to locate books and series in our library catalogs like Boolean, related terms, subject v. keyword, and viewing curated lists and tags."

Fine in theory, but in practice students – especially elementary and middle schoolers – seldom have the patience to do so (and that is assuming they even know the call number system well enough), particularly when they can just ask the librarian. Finally, and this is the key issue above all else, what happens when students come asking, "where is the (insert genre) section?" "Can you recommend a good (insert genre) book?" You tell the students the books are not organized by genre but by author's last names and watch their faces fall, an experience which drives my passion for genrifying.

It is not about the ease finding specific books, but rather the ability to browse. Students often have a favorite genre and want to read a new book in it without having a specific book in mind. In short, they want to browse and see what the school library has available. But that cannot if the library is not organized by genre. I have sadly seen many students leave the library empty-handed because they wanted to browse but could not, and I was too busy with other students to go through the digital catalog with them seeking books of that genre. Indeed, the English teachers all visibly brighten when I tell them we are genrifying the library because they see how hard it is for students to browse intelligently if at all. Leanne Ellis keeps talking about helping "students locate books they want" when in fact most students do not have a specific book they want. They want to read a Mystery, or a Romance, or Historical Fiction, or Sports-themed Realistic Fiction. They have no tittle in mind, no author, and until a library is organized by genre little way to browse for one. I have had several students ask me when the new genre sections will be ready to implement.

Well, there is my first and hopefully last article take-down. If I sound impassioned, it is because I am.

 

Ellis, Leanne. "Genrify Your Catalog, Not Your Collection!" Knowledge Quest, November 29, 2022. https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/genrify-your-catalog-not-your-collection/