Did Maricopa really rock the world of libraries? Seriously? I think that changing and evolving according to patron needs should be procedure and I reee-aly don’t see what all of the hub-bub is about.
It is surprising because librarians, I think, are kind of radical by principal. Public libraries are “the people’s universities”, people being the key word here. It was surprising to hear that librarians were upset about the abandonment of Dewey when it has proved itself less than perfect in the past (space devoted to Western European history and Rest-of-the-World history anyone?). As the director said in his NPR interview, sometimes a book might be in two or three places within the Dewey system. It’s still early, but if this new BISAC system is user-friendly and less complicated for users, if circ is up, and patrons are happy, I don’t think we should be complaining, I think we should be gettin’ with times, folks. Bandwagons a’comin’. Hop on.
The only argument I would have is if we began to have the opposite problem and the reference and history books were all lumped together instead of the popular fiction. I must admit that seeing self-help books in the “Psychology” section at Barnes and Nobles had me shaking my head. But if that is where the majority of the community thinks to look, maybe that is where it should stay. I think this is a good system at getting the patrons in and “giving them what they want”. Perhaps after they are in the doors, we can lead them to other items they may need as well.
