Shelving Books and Journals
 

We ask for special attention to shelving because a book misshelved can be lost forever!  

 

Books

Returned books are put on carts located behind the circulation desk and throughout the library during the day. Staff on the night shifts reshelve the books to balance the work load since the day shifts do the mail.

Books are shelved according to Library of Congress classification (LCC) system call numbers (found on spine labels). It is very important that books be shelved in the proper order, so if you don't understand the Library of Congress system very well, take five minutes to read a great explanation from Honolulu Community College and do this quick tutorial.

Of course, even when we shelve books in the correct location by LCC number, our Patrons may not have an equal attention to detail when they take books down and put them back. That's why we ask staff to shelf read periodically, using Shelflister. Shelf reading involves checking the books on the shelves one by one to ensure they are in the correct LCC number order.

Try this brief exercise to practice your shelf-reading skills.

 

Items Shelved in Special Areas

Please note that even though "Birds of North America" volumes have a Library of Congress number, they have their own section in the Foyer, to the left of the Reference books.  They have a green spine in a plastic cover.  They are shelved by their own volume number, which is on the upper left of the first page of each volume.

Before re-shelving, look for these three stickers:

 

They have their own special place!!

Any book with the following label on the spine or otherwise is to be shelved in the Rhino Room with the other Juvenile books.

 

Any book with the following label on the spine or otherwise is to be shelved in the Rhino Room with the other Research/Writing books.

 

Any book with the following label on the spine or otherwise is to be shelved in the Foyer with the other Reference books.

 

 

Journal Shelving

Journals are shelved in alphabetical order, then volume/chronological order

  • Some new journals may need to be put on display and the previously displayed volumes put back in the stacks.  See Journals on Display
  • Anytime they need to be reshelved, please be aware of the space available for the journal

Give journals a home in a "princeton file" (the black metal casing). They deserve some lovin'!

***If there isn't any remaining space in a file, make a new one! ***


                 No                                           Yes

   

 *Take Notice*

A GREEN dot indicates a current subscription that will continue being placed on the shelves.

No dot means we have no current subscription.

Find where the journal belongs. Place it neatly in the princeton files. If it does not fit, then a new princeton file needs to be created.

To create a new file:

  1. Find a new princeton file on the shelf in front of Cary's office.
  2. Create a new label for the file. See how at Label Printing page.