Date of Award

Summer 1986

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Urban Services - Urban Education

Committee Director

Katherine T. Bucher

Committee Member

James R. K. Heinen

Committee Member

Robert H. MacDonald

Abstract

Without an adequate access and delivery system for "easy" books, young children are locked out of the vast literary resources of elementary school libraries. The research described in this dissertation was conducted for the purpose of investigating the extent to which a variation in classification systems corresponded to variations in management and access. Elm's Classification System and H. W. Wilson's "E" classification for "easy" books were the two systems involved in the study.

In the spring of 1985, a questionnaire was mailed to 38 librarians in the public school systems in four cities in the Tidewater Area of Virginia--Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach (84 percent return rate); a survey was mailed to 72 interested librarians and other professionals in the field of library science in cities throughout the United States (78 percent return rate); and 71 kindergarten through second grade students were interviewed.

The nonparametric procedures, chi square and Kendall's tau c, indicated a relationship and an association between the two variables under study; therefore, the following null hypotheses were rejected: (1) There is no relationship between efficiency of management and the use of a particular classification system in elementary school libraries; (2) There is no relationship between ease of access and the use of a particular classification system in elementary school libraries.

The superiority of Elm's Classification System over the traditional "E" classification was evidenced by the following: (1) Seventy-two percent of the librarians using Elm's reported that the time required to assist students was either no problem at all or only a slight problem; whereas, 64 percent of the librarians using the other system reported this task to be a moderate to serious problem; (2) A strong chi square indicated that the time required to take inventory and read shelves was a much greater problem to those librarians using the traditional "E" classification than to those using Elm's; (3) Librarians and other professionals in the field of library science reported that Elm's encourages independence, simplifies the transition to the Dewey Decimal System, allows younger children to function as library assistants, provides ease in identifying weak areas of the collection, and enables librarians to devote more time to other library responsibilities.

In summary, Elm's Classification System is an access and delivery system which promotes efficiency of management and ease of access.

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DOI

10.25777/2ewx-2p03

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