The Categories

I'm still tossing the subcategories around, but have decided on my main categories. I combined ideas from METIS, Storytime Katie, Gretchen Caserotti at the Darien Library, and Amy The Show Me Librarian to come up with my main subject areas. Here they are:

Ourselves: My Body, Growing Up, Family, Friendship, Emotions, Feelings
Concepts: Alphabet, Colors, Numbers, Shapes, Opposites
Favorites: Award Winners, Favorite Characters, Favorite Authors, Classics
Nature: Conservation, Food, Plants, Seasons, Weather
Animals: Birds, Fish & Water, Dinosaurs, Bugs & Crawlies, Farm, Pet, Zoo, Forest
Community: Biographies, History, Careers, Sports
Traditions: Birthdays, Holidays, Religion
Transportation: Air, Land, Water, Military
Tales: Fairy & Folk
Rhymes & Songs: Mother Goose, Nursery Rhymes, Poetry, Songs, Fingerplays
Stories: Everything else.

The main categories are finalized, it is the sub-categories I am still working out. I started this post about a week ago, and have already changed my mind about sub-categories. For example, when I got to the farm/ tractor/ farmer books I did not want to separate them. Hmmm. . . thinking about adding them to Community. Why? Probably half the kids in town live on a farm or have a grandparent with a farm which are all part of our. . . community. We'll see what happens after I sleep on it.

I think the decision making is one of the best and worst parts of this project. I make all the ultimate decisions and am free to make whatever categories I want. I try very hard to be thoughtful about this; thinking about how patrons will be looking for the books and I also talk at my co-workers constantly about how they would do it, but ultimately it is up to me. Waa! Haa! Haa!  It's all up to me!!!

Update March 23rd. I changed one of my main categories to Fun & Games.