When the lower level of the Shelter Island Library re-opens next year after the renovation, patrons will be greeted with changes that are very obvious and some that are less so. Whether they descend to the ground floor via the newly installed elevator or by the old stairway, they’re sure to notice the more commodious and flexible meeting spaces, the comfortable chairs, the rolling shelving and many other wonderful physical amenities.

Less apparent, but no less important, will be the re-shelving of the library’s non-fiction collection that will largely be relocated to the lower level. A new customer-centric system for organizing these materials will be introduced that will put to rest the Dewey Decimal System, a classification method that has been one of the leading library systems since its introduction in 1876 by Melvil Dewey.

According to the New York Times, “Dewey” is in use in over 200,000 libraries in 138 countries across the globe; the Library of Congress system is the other major classification system in widespread use. Library Director Denise DiPaolo and her staff made the decision to reclassify the non-fiction collection by subject matter and broad thematic categories in order to make the library more user-friendly and enable patrons to “browse” the shelves more easily and effectively. The Shelter Island Library will be only the second facility in Suffolk County to begin organizing its collections without complete and strict adherence to Dewey.

“Patrons are used to the bookstore browsing mode,” said Ms. DiPaolo, “so we want to accommodate that and make it as easy as possible for people to find the materials they want.”

The impetus for implementing a new system was made possible in part by the new shelving that will be in use on the lower level that will make it easier to group books by subject matter. “Sachem Public Library, which is one of the largest libraries in the system, was the first to move away from Dewey. Our experience, as a significantly smaller library, will be closely watched by the rest of the county,” Ms. DiPaolo said.

The “Free Dewey” movement began in 2007 in the Maricopa County, Arizona, when the newly-opened library began shelving books using a system adapted from the book industry, which relies on an alphabetical list of 52 broad categories ranging from Antiques and Collectibles to True Crime.

If you are looking for a book on gardening with perennials, you would simply look for the shelf signage for the gardening section rather than checking the catalog (or asking the staff) where to find the books in the stacks organized by the 10 Dewey classes. Library industry research has shown that many patrons find the Dewey call numbers too complicated to use, feel intimidated by or don’t understand the classification system and want to go directly to the correct shelf without having to stop and look up call numbers. Some libraries have totally done away with all Dewey-classified books, others are using a variety of hybrid systems, which is what Ms. DiPaolo says Shelter Island will do. The children’s department, for example, will not use the new categorization.

As the renovation nears completion, the staff will be putting together signage, information and browsing tips to guide patrons in finding the books of their choice. In the meantime, check out some of the new titles that you can easily find in the “new books” section of fiction, non-fiction, large print and audio titles located right inside the side door. That won’t be changing any time soon!

See you at the library!

NEW FICTION

Burnt Mountain, Anne Rivers Siddons

A Catered Affair, Sue Margolis

Children and Fire, Ursula Hegi

Death in High Places, Jo Bannister

Split Second, Catherine Coulter*

Quinn, Iris Johansen

A Murder in Tuscany, Christobel Kent

Blind Fury, Lynda La Plante

Full Black, Brad Thor*

Ghost Story, Jim Butcher*

Happy Birthday, Danielle Steel*

The Ideal Man, Julie Garwood

The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan

Long Drive Home, Will Allison

Miss New India, Bharati Mukherjee

Northwest Corner, John Burnham Schwartz

The Orchard, Jeffrey Stepakoff

Overbite, Meg Cabot

Portrait of a Spy, Daniel Silva* (local author)

Retribution, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson

Rules of Civility, Amor Towles

A Small Hotel, Robert Olen Butler

Then Came You, Jennifer Weiner*

A Dance With Dragons, George R.R. Martin*

Victory and Honor, W.E.B. Griffin

NON-FICTION

Absolute Monarchs, John Julius Norwich

La Seduction, Elaine Sciolino*

Demonic, Ann H. Coulter

The Interrogator, Glenn Carle

Tangled Webs, James B. Stewart

Sex on the Moon, Ben Mezrich (also on audio book)

Railroaded, Richard White

The Wild Life of Our Bodies, Rob R. Dunn

The Breast Cancer Companion, Nancy Sokolowski

We First, Simon Mainwaring

Get Rich Click! Marc Ostrofsky

Stories My Father Told Me, Jeffrey Lyons

The World on Fire, Amanda Foreman

20 hours, 40 minutes, Amelia Earhart

The Churchills, Mary S. Lovell

Lee Krasner, Gail Levin

LARGE PRINT

Against All Enemies, Tom Clancy

Carte Blanche, Jeffery Deaver

The Greater Journey, David G. McCullough*

In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson*

Monument to Murder, Margaret Truman

AUDIO BOOKS

Buried Prey, John Sandford

Now You See Her, James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge*

Smokin’ Seventeen, Janet Evanovich*

Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher

* New York Times best seller