Spine Labels for CHIS Collections
14 Aug 2000
Question:
How do you designate on the call number label of your consumer health books that it is a consumer book so that it gets shelved properly? (I imagine we all use volunteers to a certain extent for shelving.) How do you designate in your online catalog the same thing so that customers know to go to the consumer collection, not the medical collection?
At our library, our consumer health collection is located in the larger Hawaii Medical Library. For our consumer health books, the spine labels read CHIS (consumer health information service - the name of our service) followed by the call number. If it is a reference title in CHIS, we have a Ref label over the spine label. This way, the shelvers see the label and know it goes into our collection, not the larger medical library.
As for the online catalog, CHIS is a location in the online catalog, along with BOOKS, REF, RESERVE, AV, etc.
We use subjects for call numbers (Cancer, Nutrition, Parenting, Women's Health, etc.) and cover the spine labels with clear yellow plastic labels.
Our consumer health library is separate from the medical library, but I have children's books along with the adult stuff. I use colored tape to indicate age groups. I put on the call number and the colored tape and then cover it all with clear call number protectors so they stay on. It works fine and you can see at a glance what's what. You can also get the colored dots from an office supply place and do the same thing for really cheap. (Reading Levels)