DVD Reorganization Project

If you walked by the DVD display cases lately, you would see a lot of empty spaces as pictured here. What happened to the DVDs?

They haven't gone too far! They are on book trucks at the public service desk waiting to be processed for the new DVD reorganization project. Even if a DVD is not on the display, it may still be checked out from the desk if on a book truck. 

Anthony Prince, cataloging and metadata librarian, said the DVD project is to help make the DVD collection more user-friendly and browsable. "We are in the process of reorganizing the collections. DVDs will now be divided into two general categories, Popular and Academic," Prince said.

The eventual goal of this reorganization is to allow everyone to browse the DVDs alphabetically. Each DVD will be divided by category, popular or academic, and will be arranged alphabetically by title on the display shelves within each category.

The popular category will include feature films (the kinds of movies you go out to see) and comedic TV shows (yes, the library has South Park episodes). The academic category will include documentaries and other educational works. 

The current local call number scheme will remain and still be used for retrieval when an item is checked out, but DVDs will not be shelved by the local call number. This reorganization project is a joint project of the library Tech Services group, who came up with the idea and sorted the DVDs into the two general categories, and the Public Services group, who will alphabetize the collection and apply color dots to the DVD cases to help with re-shelving the DVDs by one of the two categories.

Please be patient as the library staff works to complete this reorganization project. At the end of the project, instead of combing through all our DVDs by the local call number, we will be able to locate the DVDs alphabetically within each category making it easier to retrieve and to checkout the DVDs.