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How to shelve a collection of teaching aids?
Our Library has a collection of Montessori teaching aides for our education students, but they are all shelved at the same shelf number. Does your library house a Montessori collection? If so, how have you shelved it? Pictures Welcome
Steve Fleming
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Answer by Deborah Mould
I don't have experience with Montessori teaching aides, but taking a look at Deakin University they appear to have shelved their Montessori collection using various combinations - but a common one is the use of a secondary alpha set that takes the first letter of the first three words of the title.
E.g. Montessori education: yesterday, today and tomorrow by Marian O'Donnell is at call number 371.392 ODO/MEY. Bringing the Montessori approach to your early years practice by Barbara Isaacs is 371.392 ISA/BTM
At a university I worked at some time ago, we did create a special education area for children with disabilities which had a prefix (TAA), used the relevant DDC number about the topic being taught (i.e. TAA 641.5 for cookery, TAA 700 for arts) and filed these in at the rear of the collection so that they could be identified quickly.
It did create some confusion for the students however, who definitely preferred to go to the same area they had always gone to for teaching materials and search the shelves manually, rather than locate them on the catalogue and wander up the back.
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Answer by Fisher
My library doesn't use Montessori teaching aids in particular, but we do have what we call kits. These are collections of themed materials usually included books, a video or audio CD, puppets/play food/puzzles or other hands-on toys & learning materials. These we store in mesh bags that have a laminated card listing the contents & a barcode. Some are library creations, other commercial kits we purchased.
They have their own shelves, though a hanging rack may work better, especially for a larger collection.
Demco used to sell a collection that I'm unable to located using their website that they called Discovery Packs. This illustrates the hanging back option of storage:
