Identifying series

Do any of your libraries do anything to identify the position of a book in a series from the shelf itself, rather than having to refer back to the catalog? As we're not planning on reopening the building to the public for some time, we're working on some fine-tuning projects like this and I'm hoping to see some places where it's worked effectively.

Unfortunately adding series name & number to the spine is a no-go, given the state of our technical services department. I was thinking about shelf-talkers or bookmarks. I've seen some libraries just write the name of the series and the number inside the front cover.

Not that I noticed. Most of the time, series books were placed together simply by being associated by author, and from there it was usually easy to eyeball what was available. We'd have to do to the catalogue to find out which specific titles were available if we didn't seem them on the shelf.

There were local set-ups though. If a series was very popular, or we had lots, we could give them their own labelled shelf or have them on a display rack that was noted in the system so staff knew where to find them.

It's on my to do list. I don't like junking up the spine, so I've been considering the options listed above. Right now I'm leaning toward shelf talkers or something similar. When this gets accomplished might depend on whether school is face-to-face or online in the fall.

Are we talking school library or public library?

Honestly, I don't think that it's worth it. a) that's what the catalog is for. If there isn't good enough series data in the catalog, then that is a much better and more productive use of time to fix that bad data. b) If a book is in a series, that info is already in the book. Usually on a facing page before the title page. Why mark up the books even more when they don't have to be??

Ick. So many typos in my last post.

For reference, I was speaking of the local publish library branches that I use and did a practicum at.

I think that the size of the library would be something to consider, along with the size of the series. I've only seen series labels in academic libraries where nit picky topics span many shelves, and it was in a sort of academic short-hand on the spine or inside the front cover.

We do. We create labels with the series name and the # in the series. These then go on the top of the spine. It helps our patrons and staff.