Monday, July 21, 2008

One of my goals...

Something I'm interested in is how to make our collection for parenting issues and topics stronger and more accesible. I am a patron of the Lone Tree library in Douglas and am so impressed with their collection which they've named HIP (help in parenting). They have all the potty training, dealing with death, manners, new siblings, going to the doctors etc. picture books all in one place and all the parenting materials intended for adults all in one place. It is incredibly helpful and I've used that collection often.
I'm not crazy about how we currently shelve our parenting material at Smoky...some of it is in the sad, outdated parent collection we have, some in picture books and some upstairs in adult non-fiction.
How are other libraries handling this? How can we improve it?

5 comments:

Jill Corrente said...

Okay--tell me when this gets annoying--how can we support this on the web? Part of the web team's challenge is to sort of re-create the catalog outside of the catalog to make library materials more accessible. Is there a special way these could be displayed on Tales' Treehouse to help?

Elisabeth said...

I think the parenting blog on Tales' is a great start. Expanding some of the topics such as pregnancy/new sibling, starting school, coping with death and dying, and potty training to include a comprehensive bib would be popular(or does something like this already exisst and I missed it)?

MelissaZD said...

Especially since as a district we have been trying to get away from "special collections" in separate locations, since while it can improve access for some things, too many special areas can make it hard to navigate as well...together with our desire to cut down on so many paper bibs. So looking for ways to use (and promote) the website become even more critical in addressing issues like this.

Jill Corrente said...

I do have lists on pregnancy and potty training--am still trying to figure out the best place to put them (they've been posted to the blog and tagged accordingly--parent blog,pregnancy,potty training--and should be searchable). Am open to suggestions! Thanks for the topics for other lists. What are opinions on whether or not there needs to be separate lists for parents and kids (tagging is not always so discriminating--I have a back to school list but it runs the gamut)?

Amie said...

I agree Elisabeth; its so hard finding things at SM when a parent asks for potty training or new sibling. We have to run all over the place. Id like to re-organize this as well. It would help everyone.