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Topic: How to organize a church library

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pumpkinmom
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Posted: May 27 2014 at 3:26pm \| IP Logged

I'm looking for some advice. I'm thinking about volunteering to reorganize our church library, if I can come up with a plan!

It gets no use(maybe one or two people a year use it)! The book shelves are only waist tall and everyone has to bend over to find the books. This is a problem that needs to be fixed and I'm certain I could come up with someone to build something else. The books are old. Which isn't a bad thing, but there hasn't been any additions to the library.

I really have no idea how to organize the books. I need suggestions for this, please! Also, how to do organize checking out books and what kinds of "rules" should be imposed?

How would you go about getting suggestions for the library?

I was thinking of having a free will donation breakfast after Mass to get some funds to purchase a few new books to get people interested. This would be easy as people are good about volunteering to bring food and coming to eat and leaving money in the jar.

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Erin
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Posted: May 27 2014 at 4:05pm \| IP Logged

Cassie

Surprised I'm chiming in

Couldn't resist, books> organising. I'm here

I'm going to assume there is no organisation in place (could be but to give you ideas)
First you need to organise into categories

Adults

not sure what your library has but how I have my own home library

Catechism
Saints
History (Australian also in my case)
Papacy
Marionology
Liturgy
Spirituality
Encyclicals
Hymns
Liturgical Year

Children
(have these divided into chapter and picture books)
Bibles
Saints
Teaching
Prayers books
Catholic Fiction
Spiritual

*I have the liturgical year picture books divided too
Christmas
Lent/Easter
Ordinary Times (need a better system here)

Going to think a bit more what you might need next

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JodieLyn
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Posted: May 27 2014 at 4:42pm \| IP Logged

You might be able to find someone to "lift" the bookcases you have.. either attaching them to the walls or putting on top of a narrow table.. even stacking on one another would at least put half the books at an easier to reach level.

Also when you get new books I would look at books with larger print and audio books and talks and dvds.. you probably have an older population that has either read what you have or is perhaps unable to read it through vision issues and these things would help make it accessible to them.

Also you might just ask for donations of books from church members anything they may not be using at home to get a good kick off.. maybe your breakfast could be donation of money OR books for the library.

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JodieLyn
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Posted: May 27 2014 at 4:43pm \| IP Logged

As far as organizing I just tend to group like books and after I have some groups I can name them if there's enough of them to bother to name

ekbell
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Posted: May 30 2014 at 11:05am \| IP Logged

A display table may be useful for displaying new and/or seasonal books and it has the advantage of being something you can do while waiting on better shelving.

As for checking out books, the essential component is a way of knowing who has what book. If you decide on a borrowing period (which not only discourages book hogging but also reduces the chance that someone -like me- will simply never get around to returning borrowed books) then you will also need a way of quickly knowing how long a book has been out. BTW a 'property of ....' stamp or book plate will also help with those -like me- who tend to forget about borrowing books.

A log book where date, book(s), borrower and contact information is recorded is quick and easy to set up if somewhat cumbersome in practice. Assigning user ID's (so that full name and contact info need only be provided once) and book ID's (so full title's are also recorded once) can reduce the cumbersomeness of a logbook.

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