Why Your Should Pay Attention to the Call Numbers

 Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 9am-1pm, Youth Services    

In my eagerness to help patrons today, I messed myself up by not paying attention to every detail of the call number. The first time it was mom and daughter looking for the series Ivy and  Bean. They showed me where they thought it should be J-BAR, but there weren't any. The catalog showed that fourteen books were supposed to be on the shelf, but we could not find any. Later, they returned to tell me they found them on a different shelf. I realized that we had been in the Mystery Junior Fiction section. I should have noticed the M on the spine label to indicate Mystery, but I never did. 

The next time it happened was with a lady who was looking for some Spanish books. We quickly found one of her books but could not find the second one. It turns out that the second Spanish book she was looking for was not in the Spanish non-fiction section of books but in the regular non-fiction. In my defense, it is confusing for the library to shelve some Spanish language books in the Spanish section of the library. In contrast, others are shelved in non-fiction with other world languages. 

Today, I noticed an ebb and flow of patrons that coincided with the library programming. Right before and after a program started, we would get busy, and then there were very few patrons needing help. The library may consider staffing the reference desk in that way. During the busy times, I felt like I could have used more people to help at the desk.

The section we were looking at J-M BAR 

  

Where the "Ivy and Bean" books were J BAR

Sara Gandaría-Escamilla Geeta Halley, Site Supervisor Practicum Schedule