Monarch Method "Light"
If you're not ready to make a total conversion yet - I get it. Why not think about trying...
3 phases of the Monarch Method "Light" system that are explained below.
3 phases of the Monarch Method "Light" system that are explained below.
STEP one
Pull Manga out of Dewey 700s Literature. Put it in the front of the library where it's eye-catching, draws the students in, and gets students interested in coming into the library who may not be high end users.
Step two
Pull biographies out of Dewey Biography section and mix them in with subject sections. We found that students were consistently having difficulty finding biographies for research papers so this is one of the first changes we made. For example, a student is assigned to find a biography of someone pivotal in the Civil War. They would have to know ahead of time to look for Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee or Harriet Tubman and then try to find those among the hundreds of biographies on the shelves. Plus, they could miss learning about someone who may not be as well-known that they might really be interested in because they didn't know to look for them. Now all of these biographies are contained in a single Civil War section so it's one trip to find everything they need.
step three
Mix Fiction and Non-Fiction sections. While this feels taboo, it follows the Amazon or bookstore model that we are emulating. This model is what today's students are used to. When they are looking for a book on amazon.com, they type in the subject, i.e. "Soccer." From this one search they get non-fiction books about the World Cup, instruction manuals about the game, biographies about players, and fiction stories where soccer is the setting. This is exactly what we are trying to do with the Monarch Method - make searching more modern and intuitive for today's students.
