You may notice Molly and Justine working away in the teen room. They’re working on a big project to Genrefy the fiction collection. What does this mean? How will it make browsing different? Let’s talk about it!
When you go into a bookstore, you’ll often find books sorted by genre. You’ll find a “Mystery” section and a “Fantasy” section. Sometimes you’ll find a “Paranormal” section or even a “Paranormal Romance” section. These are examples of genres, and sorting the books by genres is what we call “genrefying a collection.”
We’ve noticed over the last year, since Molly was hired as our Youth Services Assistant to build relationships with the teens in our community, that teens are asking for books in a specific genre. This is different than how adults usually browse the collection, looking for a specific title or all the works by a specific author. Teens seem to come into the library looking for “romance” books or “dark and spooky” books. To make browsing easier for them, we’re working to organize the collection in a way that makes sense to their requests.
The project has just begun and is already evolving; there are so many genres and subgenres! But we promise, if nothing else, you’ll be able to easily find romance, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, horror, and realistic fiction.