Red Hawk was the first school in the district to adopt a word-based classification system that replaced the widely-used Dewey Decimal System with a more user-friendly system modeled after what most large, chain bookstores use. Rather than being sorted by assigned call numbers, books are organized into broad topics and then more specific categories.
Anticipating some backlash, Buchter, who coordinates the district's media services, surveyed about 270 fourth-graders in the Erie feeder system in 2010-11 and followed them as fifth-graders at Red Hawk this past school year.
She found that as fifth-graders at Red Hawk, students checked out a wider variety of genres and transitioned more between fiction and nonfiction materials. They also checked out 422 more nonfiction books as fifth-graders than as fourth-graders. The new system also reduced the librarian's workload and shelving time.
