Picture Book Neighborhoods: Where we are now

I did the first decisive overhaul of the picture book neighborhoods in 2022. I had not weeded in any significant way since 2018/2019, original issues with the categories had compounded, and several areas had gotten very confusing. I reviewed all the categories and did a title-by-title weed and evaluation. It took most of a year, but it was worth it once I was done - while I had kept most of the original organization, I had taken into account various requests, changes in the way people were searching for books, and growing trends. My favorite comment will always be the patron who complained that their local library didn't organize the books the way I did and they couldn't find what they wanted, so they just drove over to our library (where all the train books were in one spot lol.)

I had hoped to have left the collection a bit longer, but in only two years we were running into several problems. First, I had made a miscalculation - in trying to simplify the spine labels and sub-categories, I'd ended up with large chunks that had identical spine labels, making it difficult to shelve accurately and find specific books for holds. As always, there were changes in subjects, how and what people were looking for, and new trends in picture books to account for. So, I started another major overhaul in the summer of 2024 and finally finished in February 2025. I also flipped the favorites/classics section so it's the first thing you encounter as you enter the youth area. We also completely redid all the signage, with new dividers being created by my talented associate.

This is the most time-consuming collection to weed and maintain; unlike most collections, circulation is not a factor that can be taken into account; In a collection of approximately 5,800 titles, fewer than 20 titles had last circulated prior to 2023. Fewer than 100 had last circulated in 2023. I have to weed based on condition, space, popularity of the subject in general, and what I like to call "psychic collection development" where I generally divide the number of times a book has circulated by the years we've owned it and then make decisions based on that and a host of other factors, including whether it will be popular in the future, just needs to be promoted, is an important subject that should be represented even if it doesn't circulate regularly, etc. etc.

The last issue with the collection, which it isn't possible to resolve now but I hope to fix in the future, is that the new arrangement of the shelves, made in 2022, made the spaces between a little narrower. Add in our snazzy new dividers (which patrons are LOVING) and it's worse. I anticipate having to replace the dividers regularly because patrons, staff, strollers, carts, etc. can't help but bend them as they go by.

After our initial drop in circulation due to the pandemic, picture book circulation slowly worked back up. In 2023 it was at 25,000 and in 2024 it was over 28,000, the highest it's been since 2016 (that year picture book circulation was 30,000!). I'm interested to see what happens in 2025, as I completed this project between fall 2024 and winter 2025.

The updated arrangement of the neighborhoods can be found on this spreadsheet. There is also a detailed description in my Guide to the Youth Collection, with more links to resources like Pinterest. The dividers can be found on Canva.

Next up, I'll be exploring the details of each area and highlighting specific materials.