Off the Shelf

Each year at the Masterton Library we issue between 250 and 300,000 books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines, something we are very pleased about and keen to grow even higher. The upshot of this however is that we also have to shelve between 250, and 300,000 library items each year, averaging at about 1,000 a day. Shelving may seem like a fairly simple task but if it is not done properly it can create a lot of problems and a book that has been incorrectly shelved can be very difficult to find, not quite a needle in a haystack but close to it.



Arranging books in an ordered manner so they can easily be retrieved is one of the cornerstones of librarianship and correct shelving is essential for this. Here at Masterton Library we use the Dewey Decimal System for classifying all our non-fiction books. Dewey is not the only method devised for ordering library books, but it is probably the most common and is used all around the world.


The Dewey Decimal System was developed in 1876 by Melvil Dewey, an American educator and librarian. The Dewey system aims to organise all knowledge within ten main divisions, with thousands of potential subdivisions. The Dewey system has been revised many times and although it can include fiction, many libraries including Masterton, shelve their fiction titles separately according to the first three letters of the author’s surname.


Each non-fiction book is assigned a call number by a cataloguer according to its subject. The first three numbers of the call number indicate where the book fits within Dewey’s ten main divisions. This may then be followed by a decimal point and further numbers which indicate the subdivision, and then the first three letters of the author’s surname. Assigning a call number can be a very difficult process but once it is done we know where to put a book, and crucially, where to find it again.


Here at Masterton Library we assign different degrees of attention to the shelving of items depending on the use they receive, and how difficult it is to retrieve them. Our children’s board books for example are simply placed in a dedicated bin because it’s easy to flick through these to find what you want. This obviously wouldn’t work for the non-fiction – it would have to be a very big bin for a start.


Our DVDs are separated into film and television titles and musical performances. All fiction (adult, junior and young adult) is shelved alphabetically according to the author’s surname. We don’t separate the fiction into different genres as some libraries do, but we do put genre stickers on the spines of our books so borrowers can identify them easily. Non-fiction shelving is the most involved process making sure that the book is correctly located according to the sequence of numbers, and according to the alphabetical order of the authors.


Shelving therefore would seem to be a fairly straight forward procedure of following numbers and knowing the alphabet, and for the most part it is. There are occasional traps such as compound surnames, authors whose surname begins with a Mc or a Mac, or Icelandic authors whose surnames are written before their first names (books by crime novelist Yrsa Sigurdardottir for example are shelved at YRS in the fiction section). Mostly however it is an ability to concentrate and maintain attention to detail that is required for successful shelving.


We suspect that some of the miss-shelving that does occur is the result of members of the public browsing the collection and returning books to the shelf in the incorrect sequence. If you are unsure of where to replace a book we are more than happy for you to leave it for us to do. We regularly tidy up books that have been left around the library and actually keep a record of these as it is good to know the books that are being looked at, even if they are not being taken out. You could also bring unwanted books to the issue desk and we can sort them out for you.


All members of staff here at Masterton Library are assigned an area to shelve and this is rotated on a monthly basis. Shelving books is a great way to get to learn the collection and it is also useful to be out amongst the shelves to help patrons with any questions they may have. To many librarians shelving can seem a bit like housework in that there’s always more to be done. But while it can be quite onerous we know that it needs to be done and that well-ordered shelves make our job of finding information so much easier. 

Jon Adams
Community Outreach Librarian
Masterton District Library