The Problem

The Problem

The library at Paris Elementary is a large library. At this time PreK - 1st grade students stay on the side of the library with the Everybody books. This division keeps the Nonfiction section separate from the side for PreK-1st grade. The reason for this separation is that teachers and parents are requesting that students check out books that are aligned with their reading level.

Some younger students have difficulty finding high interest informational books in the nonfiction section of the library. This is due to the fact that most are just learning to read letters and numbers, making the Dewey Decimal System useless. (Daigle, N., Summer, J., Perry, A., Colvin, S., 2015) This makes it difficult for younger students to find the books they want. If they don't have a librarian, clerk, or teacher to help them, they are lost in this section of the library.

Ideally these students could ask the school library media specialist for assistance. However, since the media specialist is often teaching a class, students need to be able to independently find high interest books on the shelves.

This is not a problem when the student knows what they are looking for but when a student is browsing for something that may peak his or her interest they often come up against a time constraint before they have found that "just right book."

The lack of browsability in the nonfiction section of the library leads to an underutilization of the collection when it comes to informational titles.