Shelving Books
Books with call numbers between A and PR 3999 are located on the second floor of the library.
Books with call numbers between PR 4000 and Z are located on the third floor of the library.
Books with call numbers between A…OVER and Z…SMOVR are located in the Oversize Section on the third floor of the library. (Oversize may be indicated by OVER, SMOVR or OVRSZ)
Books with call numbers ending with REF. are located in the Reference Room on the first floor of the library.
- Generally, your truck for shelving will have books that belong to only one floor.
A 'range' is an entire row of shelving. Each range has a label on each side to indicate which call numbers it houses. One side of a range has eight or nine bays.
A 'bay' is a vertical group of individual shelves (usually six but there is some variation).
To Begin Shelving
Take your cart to the correct floor.
Proceed to the first range. Check the range label to see which books belong there. Take those books off the cart and shelve them in order.
All of the books on the shelf should be lined up at the front edge of the shelf. Place the book you are shelving as far forward as you can, in line with the other books, and ensure that the bookend is secure.
Proceed to the next range and continue shelving until you have completed the truck.
Important Tips
All new Student Assistants will be given a training cart to complete in their first week of work. The training cart has two purposes: first, to provide hands-on practice, and second, to help us assess each student’s understanding of the training they have been given.
Questions are strongly encouraged during the first week of training and beyond. The backbone of any good library is that every book is in the exact location it should be. Otherwise the service that we offer would fall apart.
Never guess how to shelve a book. If a point is not clear to you, we are all here to help. If you cannot find someone to help you, bring the book back down to shelve later.
Ensure that the books on either side of the one you are shelving are in the correct order. If the books are mixed up, take the time to rearrange them. If the problem is too extensive to fix while shelving, tell your Supervisor or Stacks Manager about it.
Take the time you need to shelve accurately. An experienced Student Assistant can shelve a full truck of books in approximately 45 minutes to an hour. When you are learning, you will need more time.
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