Arrangement of Library Collection

[Vandana Goel]

How to arrange school library collection upto 12th standard where collection is soo messy and DDC is not there. Please suggest me some useful arrangement which is easily accessible for students as well as teachers.

[Sujatha Kannan]

First you Segregate the books according to the subjects like  Reference Books, Science, Fiction, History, Language, Biography etc

Reference Books again sub-divide Dictionary, Encyclopaedia, Handbook If you have only little collection you just give number like Ref1,Ref 2 like

Science Books Sub-divide Like Physics,Chemistry, Biology, Botany give separate numbers for each title and arrange on the shelves. If you have limited collection everything you put under Sci1, Sci 2 like

All Fiction Books Fic1,Fic2 Like

In the same way you can arrange all the titles and arrange each subjects either titlewise or authorwise

Best Regards

Sujatha Kannan

[Vandana Goel]

thank you mam.........mam please tell me about other subject books.arrangement according to subject or class wise

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Ms. Vandana Goel,

Thanks for your post and presenting an issue which is presumably common to many school and small sized Libraries. 

I understand that you do not have DDC. It is a costly material and many schools and small Libraries quite naturally can not afford to buy the volumes. But I am sure that as a Library professional you might be remembering the second schedule of DDC where the Class numbers of subjects are assigned ( I am sorry for writing this, but as a student of old school, we had to memorize the 2nd Summary and in our final examination in the "Viva Voce" we were often asked to tell the subdivisions of a subject as per the second summary!!) , or even better, just get photocopies of the Second and Third Summaries and you job will be done. In a school Library, I don't think that you need any more for further subdividing the subjects.  It will altogether be just eleven pages. For instance, in the second summary of Science  510 is Mathematics,  and in the Third Summary mathematics is further subdivided to: General Principles (511), Algebra (512); Arithmetic (513) , Topology (514) Analysis (515). Geometry (516), ...Numerical Analysis (518) & Probabilities & Applied Mathematics (519) The Class No. 517 is assigned  for Unassigned Mathematical subjects [DDC 23rd. Ed.] I have marked some with bold face because presumably only they will be required for a School Library.

So you see that acquiring a DDC schedule is not mandatory for a school Library.

In case you want to have locational markings for the books, Mark the Almira  serially (like 1,2,3,4, etc.) and mark each shelf alphabetically (like A,B,C,D,E,F etc.)  If you keep a book in the 3rd. shelf of Almira No. 4 mark it as 4C. Yes, I admit that each of the books kept in the Almira 4C will not be arranged serially  every time, but the books of one particular shelf will not be mingled with books of other shelves.

I have gone through Ms. Sujatha Kannan's post and appreciate her suggestions. they too are quite helpful indeed, however, if you assign broad Class Numbers ( as Ms. Kannan has suggested in the very first sentence of her post) entwined with locational marks, I feel that your problems will be solved. 

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[I must admit here that in my first place of job in a Academic Medical Library, I had no  DDC at the beginning and Xerox Machines were also not easily available in late 70's!! We had a photographer in the institute (however, there was no digital photography in those days!!)  and I requested him to take some snaps of pages of DDC available in a College Library and got the snaps enlarged and started the work as I mentioned above because, the only supporting hand I got was a 'LITERARY PEON" who could barely read English WORDS with difficulty!!]

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

[Vandana Goel]

 thank you sir

[Rajesh Sharma]

Madam

In a school Library Subject arrangment is always preferred and hence easy to aceess by users. You please classify and labelled almirah subject and further index by class wise. For instance Reference Books (including Encyclopedia, Dictionaries - further Subject Dictionaries etc), Directories, rare books etc, English Fiction, Hindi Fiction, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography, Commerce etc , NCERT Text books, then class wise XI-XII two shelves, IX-X, two shelves as per the strength of your collection, Primary books class wise. If u have software like e-granthalaya then u can make database of available books and mention location of books that will really be useful to locate books with ease. Seperate arrangment for periodicals and display for new arrivals will attract users.

Regards

Rajesh Sharma

Librarian KV

[Vandana Goel]

thank you sir...

[Siddu]

How about shelving the books by the class and then by the subject?

[Rajesh Sharma]

I used Class with respect to school library i.e. class IX,X,XI,.XII etc .It is not DDC, CC scheme class. I intended to stress upon subject and further classes like upper primary, secondary etc with regard to school library.

[Siddu]

Yes. Sounds simpler and logical.