The old system just doesn't make sense.

Well, this may be librarian blasphemy, but as a Language Arts teacher who promotes individual reading in my classroom, I have often been frustrated by the way in which fiction books are set up in our media center. Now I know having the fiction books classified by last name is an easy way to find books: when you know exactly what you are looking for! But as a teacher, I see that the large majority of kids that I send to the library have absolutely no idea of a specific book that they are looking for. The most common complaint that I get from students is that they cannot find anything to read. Now I know that our media center is stocked with great books, but they cannot seem to find one when they go there. Even if I am there to help, I often have a hard time finding the kinds of books they want, because believe it or not, I have not read every book there! They are able to tell me things like, "I like action books."So I browse through the shelves, trying to find action books that I have read. Action is not my strong area, so more often than not, I end up not being able to find them a book either. My number one thought on these occasions is how nice would it be if the books were arranged by subject area, like the non-fiction . Imagine, a students tells me they like horror stories, and I can send them to an entire section devoted to horror. As a reader myself, I love that idea. At a bookstore, I most often find myself drawn to the tables or shelves set aside that say stuff like "If you like Harry Potter, try these books." If as an adult I need help in finding books that I like, I know that teenagers need the same help.
I understand that there would be some issues, like books that overlap in subjects. The books would have to be arranged by author within the different categories. I also understand that some of this could be accomplished by creating displays promoting different subject areas. It would take a lot of knowledge and work on the part of the librarian. However, this is definitely an idea I would like to explore in more depth. Who says that the old ways are always the best?

Introduction

Libraries...when I first think of the word library, I think of the public libraries I grew up going to. It's funny, one of the neatest things my mother did for me growing up was make going to the library a fun and exciting adventure for me. My mother did not believe in (and still does not believe in) buying books. She loved to read them though, so the library became at the least a weekly trip for us. Because she developed a love of reading in me at an early age, she took the trips to the library as an opportunity to make something fun happen. When I was really little, we would go through the children's section and starting with A, we would pick a new book each trip. I do not know how many times we made it through the alphabet, but I do know that it was always something I looked forward to.
As I got older, I actually remember my mom getting annoyed at me at times because I wanted to go to the library too often. I devoured books like crazy, and the library and my mom could not keep up with me. Any trips to a mall and a bookstore resulted in me throwing all my money into buying books that I could not get in the library. For some reason the school media center was not a resource for me. Perhaps they did not carry the books I wanted or we did not have a lot of access to them. I cannot recall ever checking out a book from the school library.
My love of libraries went downhill though, as I went off to college. Now libraries were not for getting the newest novel, but for research. I went to the University of Illinois, and while the library was touted for being one of the best, I hated it. It was too big, I had no idea how to use it, and it was not even a nice place to study. I quickly found as many ways of not using the library as possible. I think if they had actually given us a tour and taught us how to use the library at some point, I would have gotten a lot more out of it. Even today, as I go back to my college studies, I avoid the college library as much as I can, using the internet and public library instead.
Now as I begin my library studies, I see that there are many types of libraries with many different issues involved in each. I will attempt to look at these different kinds of libraries and learn what I can. My goal is to become a media specialist and so my blog will most likely focus more in that area than in others. I have strong opinions about how a media center should be used in a school and what the role of a media specialist should be.
This is my first time blogging, so hopefully I will figure this all out!