‘Shelving’ eBooks

Are your students more likely to browse your shelves than your catalog? If so, how can you get them interested in all those eBooks in your collection that don’t have a space on the shelves? Make them a space!

We’ll walk you through the 3-step process.

1. Make the ‘books’.
2. Shelve the ‘books’.
3. Wait in excited anticipation until the first ‘book’ is brought to the Circulation desk.

Number one is the most work, but the most fun! Your students can even help with this one.

To make a stand-in book:

1. Cut out cardboard roughly 8.5 inches tall and 12 inches wide*. Fold it length-wise into the shape of a book, 5” front and back and 1” for both sides.
   • Alternatively, cut out a piece of styrofoam 8.5 inches tall and 5 inches wide.
   • *Rough sizes: Standard paperback is 7” tall, 4” wide; Trade paperback is 8.5” tall, 5” wide; Hardback is 9” tall and 6” wide.
2. Cover your book-shaped item in brown, white, or colored paper. Get fancy with recycled paper–mache or stickers!
3. Write the book title and author (together or separate) on a piece of colored/construction paper, cut them out (extra points for the scissors that cut in a cloud shape), and glue/tape them to the front of your book. Don’t forget the spine! Either write the information on the spine, or glue on really thin strips of paper (or print a spine label if you have copies in Alexandria for your ebooks).

Alternatively, run a Title Information report:

1. Go to Operations > Reports.
2. Click Add Report or the plus sign + at the top right.
3. In your report templates, select Titles from the categories to the left, then Title Information to the right.
4. Click Create.
5. On the Selections tab, choose how you’re grouping together your ebooks. By Policy, Medium, or even Title Call Number Range—however way you have them entered into Alexandria.
6. On the Options tab, select your format: Brief, to have the Title and Author, or Detailed, to also include the summary and other title information.
   • See examples of the formats on the Overview tab.

7. Select if you want to include cover art and how you want the report sorted.
8. Click Create.
9. If you’d like to save the report for future use, click Save and run. Otherwise, just click Run.
10. Retrieve the report by going back to your Operations.

Shelve the stand-in books

You could shelve these eBooks alongside their book counterparts, put them on a special eBook display shelf, or wherever makes sense for your library. Insert them randomly on the shelves to see what that does?

Circulate the eBooks

When that first eBook is brought to you, and the student asks ‘How can I check this out?’, pat yourself on the back, then show the student how they can look up the book in Researcher/Search and access it or check it out from there.

Here are pictures of the one we put together in about 10 minutes.

User tips: Thank you for the feedback! Keep it coming.

• Connie from Alaska recommends using old VHS cases. “Insert or apply the title, author, and eBook info, then slap on a spine label. Done!”
• Andrew from Utah suggested using discarded books for the base.

Did you try it? Tell us about it! Send a message and pictures to tipoftheweek@goalexandria.com to share!

Have questions? Reach out to our stellar support team at (800) 347-4942 · support@companioncorp.com for help!