Award-winning! Smart Work 2026: Information on non-fiction and picture reference books, so we know the limits of our knowledge

At Hämeenlinna Main Library, children’s non-fiction and picture reference books have been hard for customers to find and laborious for staff to shelve. It is important that the material is organised on the shelves so that customers get an overview of the collection: if you don’t know about materials that are relevant and interesting to you, you won’t know to look for them, and if you can’t find them, you won’t borrow them. Order and signage serve customers, and how well they work also affects the library’s loan statistics.

Children’s non-fiction and picture reference books are organised on the shelves by main class, 0–9. Originally, the classes were named according to their main subjects, with subclasses or topics separated out based on customers’ information needs or frequently asked subjects. However, many books are difficult to place unambiguously. No single preferred location was decided on and marked on the books when they were introduced, so staff had to make their own assessments and decisions each time they shelved books. The library also employs staff without training in library science, and not all materials are equally familiar to all permanent staff members either.

Non-fiction and picture reference books were marked with coloured tape for their main classes, but this did not always help enough when shelving picture reference books. The coloured tapes wore out and faded, the shades varied, not all books had them, and they were not accessible or customer-friendly, since customers were not given any guidance on the colour coding, nor could it be seen in the online library catalogue. As shelvers relied on the coloured tapes, coloured repair tape and the colouring of the books themselves also caused confusion.

A single book could be assigned several different locations, each more or less logical from different points of view. Often the same book was shelved in several places, and when searching for books, checking alternative locations was laborious. Locations that seemed logical to the person shelving the book did not always match the logical locations expected by someone searching with different background knowledge.

A couple of years ago, we began thinking about a way to mark a clear, correct location for each children’s non-fiction and picture reference book. We wanted the markings on a book’s label to indicate its correct location, just as with all other materials, and for the same information to also be found in the book’s details in the library system and the online library catalogue. Simply refining the shelf markings was not enough to make the system simple enough — picture reference books also needed to be marked with their subject.

We decided that all non-fiction and picture reference books would be labelled in the same way, and we ended up creating subject-based locations in the library system, similar to those used for marking literary genres such as thrillers. One of these subject locations is chosen for each children’s non-fiction and picture reference book, and the non-fiction and picture reference book shelves are divided into the same subjects. Because the subject locations are recorded in the library system, customers can also easily check which class a book should be found in on the shelf, and staff can shelve books according to the label without needing to examine each book individually.

The labelling work took several months, but now most non-fiction and picture reference books already have the new subject marking. Staff have given a lot of positive feedback about the change, as it speeds up work and provides confidence, since there is no longer any need to worry about whether one’s own assessment is correct or about any problems a decision might cause for customers.

Developers

Katja Malmi, Information Specialist
Emmi Kaukua, Library Clerk