One of the changes we made in our library this fall was genrefying our fiction books. That means books aren’t shelved A-Z, but instead are grouped by genre/type: Mystery, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction — like a bookstore. Or the way Netflix presents its offerings, “If you liked Breaking Bad, you also might like Orange is the New Black.” We made this change because kids rarely came in looking for a particular author, but they were always asking, “I like horror books. What should I read?” Or, “Do you have more books like Harry Potter?” Those questions left me scrambling to find suggestions since I was limited to books I had read personally. Now I can respond, “Yes! All of the Fantasy books have gold labels. If you browse through those shelves there are tons of books that you might like.” Continue reading It’s all history