When I first started here, way back in October, one of the first things I did was to organize all the print books by subject. It was pretty haphazard, since a lot of my books were either uncataloged or missing call number labels, but I rationalized that at least students could go to, say, the Allied Health section, and find books in their subject.
However, now that my collection is growing and my cataloging is speeding up, I'm having a hard time keeping my original subject areas. I originally organized my print books in an almost Barnes & Noble-esque set up - as I said before, each program had its own subject area, including General Education, and I organized by call number WITHIN each subject area. But now, I'm wondering if I should re-organize the books and simply have everything in call number order (i.e. traditional academic library structure), and then identify collections within that call number order.
I feel that both have pros and cons. On the one hand, students feel more comfortable with the bookstore model, and can quickly identify that one subject section is "their" section. On the other hand, I find myself fighting with the LC numbers and disagreeing with where individual books should go. Following the traditional LC classification for the entire collection would then allow students to explore additional subject areas through browsing.
I know this is a common library science debate, but I would love to hear from you guys on how you organized your print collections. What model do you prefer: traditional library or "bookstore" model? Or do you somehow combine both models? What would you suggest?
