Thanks to all those who replied to my recent posting about category spine
labels.  I am attaching the responses I had, but many more of you were kind
enough to send examples in the post.  I was overwealmed by the response I
had from this and the Reader Development list - thanks again.

Jo Harvey
Librarian, Reader Development
Brighton& Hove libraries





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Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead:

Have you considered using colours. These are more neutral. The trouble
with pictures is that they can date badly and they are open to subjective
debate about appropriateness which can be a pain. For example I have heard
comments about images representing black fiction. Sensitive issues that can
be avoided by using colour (and/or shapes)
Andrew Lewis
e-Services Officer
Library and Information Services
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
01628 796 592
mailto:[log in to unmask]


Stoke:

My advice is don't do it! Come up with a better system of lettering such as
LB
Bromley use:
CRI for Crime
SS for Short Stories
HOR for Horror etc...
Since leaving Bromley I've worked in 2 authorities where pictorial labels
are
in use and I think they're appalling.
My reasons are as follows:
* They're patronising to the reader
* They're often inappropriate (in one authority the fantasy category was
donated by a "fairy castle" - you ended up with books by authors like Clive
Barker and Tanith Lee [pretty dark and frightening stuff] having a "fairy
castle" on the spine!).
* They can be downright silly (one authority used the image of a rocket
standing upright to denote Sci-Fiction, a bullet standing upright to denote
thrillers, and a lipstick again standing upright for romances. Not only did
they all look similar and confuse readers, but they all resembled a
phallus!!!!
I'm sure readers were laughing at us over this....
* They're unclear. I've see a gun, a running man and a set of handcuffs used
for crime and for thrillers. Given the small area on the label none of these
images were especially clear and from a distance were totally
indistinguishable.
...
This is just my opinion, but there you go.....


North Lanarkshire:

Saw your request for labels - I use a mixture from LFC and Gresswell.
Contact details are:

LFC - 08458 506507

Gresswell - 01992 454511 - www.gresswell.com


Hertfordshire:

I will send you copies of the picture labels we currently use for Adult and
Junior. One question, I am intrigued can you enlighten me on what the
letters stand for, or are they just random choices. (V for Crime, TSF for
sea stories and Q for general fiction and are there any others your use eg:
family sages, Romance, Sci fi??).


National Library for the Blind:

It does seem a rather confusing system you have there. I worked for a while
in a library that used colour coding to denote the genres, which worked
reasonably well, but unfortunately, the colours used were not consistent
across the authority! Do you keep your genres together, or spread them
through one large alphabetical sequence?

The whole issue of genres I find difficult though. Should we be consigning
authors to a genre ghetto, or should we be encouraging more adventurousness
from our readers? What do people think?

Stuart Vaughan
National Library for the Blind
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Campbeltown Grammer

RE: Spine labelsI have inherited a library will a multitude of coloured
stickers accompanied by a wide variety of picture spine labels.  I have yet
to discern a pattern to the colours!  I have resortd to printing my own
spine labels for Senior fiction and Staff library.  All the rest of the
fiction are "junior" but not labelled as such.  I think the picture labels
look a bit dated and am reluctant to use them.  In a previous library I
created my own using Clipart and a colour printer.
Unfortunately I don't have a colour printer in Campbeltown so will have to
make do with B/W.
I didn't use sticky labels but created them on sheets of A4 and, as a
result, I can photocopy them.  After all I use sticky tape to attach them
and two lots of "sticky" seem overkill.

Personally I prefer not to go too mad with genre stickers but to use genre
bookmarks (donated by a very helpful librarian from this link).

Judi
Campbeltown Grammar


Powys

I've posted you some examples along with the catalogue pages from the LFC
catalogue.  I've written in the telephone number for the customer services
department who should be able to send you a catalogue.  We use coloured
picture ones which are nice and I've seen black and white ones though they
may not be available now.  How did they come up with the lettering system?

Anyway,  good luck with all the labelling!

Vicky Fraser

Reading

At Reading we use coloured spots. In the central library all the genres have
their own sections, but in our smaller branches we have the basic crime and
sci fi etc seperately, but the others are interfiled with the general
fiction,with the coloured spots on the spines. We have about 12 genres
identified in this way. We don't put spots on general fiction. We have
bookmarks listing the genres with a brief description of each. It seems to
work well and on the whole customers seem to like browsing genre sections.

Karen Walker
Reading Borough Libraries