Having participated so much over the past few months in our library setup at St. Patricks Secondary School, the Fluorspar Primary students returned today for anther stage of library setup which we have realized is critical to the sustainability of a library and ensuring its proper use: Book Labeling.
It was a fantastic exercise to do with Fluorspar because they were able to take a field day, and now that they have learned this, they will implement this at their own library which we opened last July.
The students learned how to identify the genre of a book by looking at its back cover. They learned what types of genres get put together, and which ones stand independently. They sorted through 1,500 books, separated them all into sections and then placing a genre label on the spine of each book.
This process took us all day, but it means now that students will know how to look for books by subject, and almost as importantly, how to put books back properly. This step is critical to maintaining proper inventory control, and for tracking loss and theft.