Describes McMillan's experience in using themes to organize the picture book collection, contrasting its decisions with those of Madison (WI) Public Library and Darien (CT) Library. This is an expansion of similar gene/ subject based organization used in McMillan's Adult Department and described in other presentations.

1. Themes for Organizing the Picture Book Collection
Madison (WI) and Darien (CT) have implemented themes and have substantial agreement about the m. This is MCM’s
final plan for implementation.
Comments: The substantial agreement indicates that we should use the nine that are shared. The only question for
those themes is implementation: labeling, sorting and so forth. Note that both of the libraries combine Fiction and NF in
themes, as long as it is ++. Some books have author and some have Dewey. Do we do something similar with the ERs?
Not at this time. McMillan has no Dewey labeled picture books or Easy Readers.
Do we want a Parents theme? Darien uses it for difficult topics (adoption, death, divorce, potty training) and it includes
both adult books and ++ items. Not at this time. Will use Growing up.
Advanced Readers seems to match with Learn to read, but there are differences. Darien focused on “how-to” and so
includes phonics, book kits and the like. Madison looks like beginning readers who have moved beyond being read to.
Maybe move some Primary 1-4 to this theme? If we understand this correctly, we can use either name, but will have to
decide what we want here. Most of our Learn to books are in the ERs. Not at this time. We are satisfied with having this
material in Easy Reader collection.
Madison has both Favorite (favorite authors) and Characters (best loved characters), which is more granular than
Darien. Use both.
Madison has split animals and nature. Too granular, use only Nature.
Darien plans to add Bedtime stories as a theme and we should too. No. After implementation, we found that existing
themes fit our shelving very well and are unlikely to make quick changes to them.
Both use celebrations, but we have a large extant Holiday collection. Use extant Holiday collections, which include
Picture Books, Easy Readers, Fiction and Non-Fiction.
Stories comprises whatever is left. This is the largest theme and minimizes handling.
Madison
Celebrations
Concepts
Favorites
Folk/Fairy Tales
Growing (up / all about me)
Nature
Rhymes (and songs)
Stories
(Things that) Go
Darien
Celebration
Concepts
Favorites
Folk/Fairy Tales
Growing Up
Nature
Rhymes & Songs
Stories
Transportation
Parents (NF)
Learn to Read
McMillan
Use extant Holiday
Concepts
Favorites (for authors)
Folk/Fairy Tales
Growing up
Nature
Rhymes
Stories
Things that go
Not now
Advanced (Readers)
Not now
Characters (best-loved)
Characters
Animals
use Nature
Bedtime (& Lullabies)
Use Rhymes
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