Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'd appreciate opinions from librarians at other synagogue libraries on whether to combine or separate non-fiction for children in grades a) pre-school to 4th-grade and b) 5th grade and up.
In our library of about 7,600 volumes, my predecessor kept separate the J and JE fiction, but partly mixed and partly segregated the non-fiction (for no apparent reason). Melinda, When I started working at EmanuEl, just about the first thing I did was to separate the children's books, both fiction and non-fiction, back into "E" (baby board books through about 3rd or 4th grade) and "J" (independent readers). My predecessor's predecessor told me she was I glad I did and said she didn't understand why the intervening librarian had mixed them up together. More recently, I decided to reclassify the "E" (for "easy") books as picture books, to distinguish between (a) the books we read to little children to introduce the concepts and (b) the books older children can read themselves for information. Sometimes I'm a bit amused by the irony of the non-fiction classification of some of these picture books. To my mind, a story about a talking spider who gets stuck inside a Purim gragger or a family of adorable talking bears building a sukkah is actually a fictitious story, but if we read it children to help them learn about the subject of a holiday and it has a Weine number, I put it on the non-fiction shelf anyway. Where I draw the line is whether the reader should have the maturity to handle to content or the readability without adults. Susan Ellman Congregation EmanuEl B'ne Jeshurun 2020 W. Brown Deer Rd. Milwaukee Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
