Tiny Cat for Church Library - Call Numbers/Spine Labels

First of all, I am so excited about using TinyCat for our church library! I'm wondering, though, if anyone can offer any ideas on what call number system to use. Right now, I have it set for using Dewey, but it looks like the majority of my books will be in the 200s since they are religiously based. Will I need to choose "Personal or Custom System" instead, and, if so, where would I enter that information? Also, I saw that LT offers barcodes for sale but I didn't see any spine labels. What would you suggest for spine labels? I apologize if my questions seem rather basic, but my church has never had an online system before or any sort of classification system, and I really want to make this work! Thank you!

I would stick with Dewey. Most of your collection will be in the DDC 200 Religion Class, but that will be fine. Our church library has over 1,700 books in the DDC 200s, and it works great--much better than reinventing the wheel. I would suggest using Dewey abridged numbers everywhere except the 200s, and you could probably use abridged numbers for much of the 200s, too.

For spine labels, try Brodart, Demco, or the Library Store. Be sure to use label protectors, too.

Have fun!

Charles

I put the Dewey in the "Dewey Melvil" column. We shorten our Dewey to the first three digits. I change the Dewey in the column so it reads same as on the spine label, with the first 3 letters of author's name. We just use regular white labels, but do use the protectors, well worth the cost, don't peel off. Good luck!

Here are two links I've found very helpful, gleaned from these boards:

input ISBN or title . . get Dewey & LC numbers
http://classify.oclc.org/classify2/

and Dewey 200
http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/webdewey/help/200.pdf

Thanks. I find OCLC very helpful.

Don't know if anyone will see my message, one year after this discussion! However, I'd like to add that I computerized our church library a few years ago. Unfortunately, I didn't know about LibraryThing then, so it was a laborious process.

I had the same issue with Dewey numbers. I did put a Dewey number on the spine labels, but after everything was shelved, I found that we were informally grouping the books according to topics so that it would be easier for patrons to browse. Some of our groupings were Men's Issues, Women's Issues, Parenting, Bible Study, etc. If I were doing this again, I'd start out by creating topics of interest to patrons and just use that instead of Dewey. If you do a search on Metis, you'll find a classification system that a school librarian created. I'd adapt something like that.

I think a small church - or school - library doesn't need the fine details of the Dewey system. Just one or two dozen topics would cover everything that patrons were looking for.

Thank you for posting and sharing the OCLC and Dewey Links.
Have a great New Year.

Since you are grouping your books and it is a small library, perhaps you could use, in addition to the Dewey, your own Call Number system such as a very simple code like A1 etc. A being bookcase and 1 being shelf number, possibly adding another number to identify the actual book.

We happily use our own subject headings, similar to those in book stores, because Dewey does a bad job with Christian/Catholic books. Dewey lumps some sections horribly at the same time it subdivides some topics in ways that seem illogical to us. Our method means more work cataloging each book but we use LT's "Your Top 100 Similar Libraries" on the book's page to see how others (who have similar needs) classify the book, along with Amazon's description, Library of Congress and OCLC.org, and it's not too bad. We wrote "rules" for some topics that could go under more than one heading and try to stick to them.

Our library was started 25 years ago so we didn't do 3700 items all at once. An side benefit of our method is that you really get to know your collection, which makes helping patrons a lot more fun. Patrons find it easy to browse our library. I work in 2 church libraries - one Dewey and one bookstore style - and patrons much prefer browsing the bookstore style library.

It can be a good bit of work, but I second setting up custom categories. We are a small preschool blessed with a pretty extensive library. We have one section where kids check out books-- this is just organized by author last name letter. We have a separate collection of "special" books related to concepts and units. For example Space, Farm, Community Helpers, Art, and then ones like Shapes, ABC and Letters, etc. The staff find this a lot easier than having to look up book after book on a topic and find it in the sea of names.

Obviously for our sort of collection Dewey is overkill

I would think that in a church setting, it might similarly be helpful to go by relevant, meaningful categories that fit your collection and patrons. It just makes more sense to people in general. Nothing against proper cataloging, or Dewey, MARC, OCLC, etc!

We have a small Parish Library (1500 items0 and we, too, arrange ours by subject heading. For each item cataloged, I use that item's Subject heading as the first 'tag' listed, so that patrons would know where each item is shelved.

I would recommend using a variation on a DeweyFree system which would be using the Personal or Custom Call Number option. Utilizing subject headings similar to what is used in bookstores, you can organize your church library using words that make sense to your congregation. For my church library I used the categories: Bibles (with several subgroups), Church Programs, Religions, Jesus, Faith, Inspiration, Families, Working with Youth, Grief, Mental Health, Physical Health, Christmas, Relationships, etc. Labels were created to represent each of the groups. These labels were then placed on the spines of the books and covered with a strip of clear tape or a label protector could be used. I just created the labels in MS Word using spine label sheets available online. Ask your local librarian where they purchase their labels. Although each of the groups has name for use in TinyCat, I put only the icons on the books to make it a visual for people to find books and easily maintain groupings on the shelves. Large labels attached to shelves contain the name of the group and its icon.

For the children's section, it was decided to group the books by targeted age group: primary (board books, easier picture books), children (more involved picture books, readers, chapter books), youth (junior & senior high, teens). The primary books are shelved in plastic bins on the bottoms shelves to make them easier for little children to access them. Colored dots on the spines indicate which age group would most enjoy the book. In addition, books that have a very specific theme (i.e. death of a grandparent) have a label with the same icon used for that group in the adult collection.

Now to the actual process. Look through your collection and then group the books according to similar topics. In this way you can use the terms used by your congregation. In our church we have a Board of Community Outreach. I made Community Outreach one of the categories. This category has books on issues in our community: poverty, racism, Habitat for Humanity, etc. and also mission programs: Heifer Project, Knitting for Peace, etc. Your church probably has groups that are unique to you.

You want to create groups that make it easy to find books using broader topics. If you get too specific, people will have to make that they use the exact word you chose which might not be what they would use. Always keep in mind what will make it most usable to your congregation.

This is time consuming, but I believe worth the effort. Don't be surprised if after you have set it all up, you decide that a group isn't working or is just too specific. Just change the record in the catalog and change the label. Your collection should be somewhat flexible to reflect the changing needs and focus of your church for maximum usage.

Enjoy the success of your labor!!

Does anyone have a free resource for a spine/pocket/card labels template??

I think https://www.avery.com/ has some good ones.