[Web4lib] RE: [lita-l] Innovation: NYT articleon Dewey-lessArizona public library

[Louise Alcorn]

 Jimm wrote:
>  I was simply wondering whether the Arizona library resolved this by
having more categories that normally found in bookstores to keep the
ratio of titles per topic down to assist browsing or whether the
trade-off between a more manageable number of titles was off-set an
increase number of categories.

I actually have the same question, and I think it would be interesting
to find out.  I hope they succeed in getting on the docket for ALA 2008
with some presentations, as I'd like to see how they fared in the first
year of this trial, and how they managed it in the first place.  I
suspect it will be well-received by their patrons overall.  

>I am simply curious as to how these sort of questions were addressed
(after all, the change was made by librarians who must have asked
questions like these before they implemented this project).  

Again, what little I've heard is that there was a fair bit of discussion
(and some resistance), and they ultimately chose to try this experiment.
I don't know if the director sees this as something that would be
useable at their larger main and branch libraries - I think that would
be a harder sell, if only for the cost of re-cataloguing (yegads!) - but
I don't know.  I think we can almost guarantee that there will be
changes and tweaking of such a system over time.  I also don't know how
this could be integrated in an academic setting - I think that would be
an almost impossible sell (?).  

Should be interesting!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Louise E. Alcorn
Reference Technology Librarian
West Des Moines Public Library
4000 Mills Civic Pkwy
West Des Moines IA 50265
(515) 222-3573      louise.alcorn at wdm-ia.com
http://www.wdmlibrary.org