This is a very important question! We have some obvious choices: books that, although brand new in appearance, are actually quite old. These books were part of the "school start-up package" and would not have been individually selected. (Louis L'Amour anyone?) However, that's where the easy part ends.
The reason for switching fiction to genrefied is simple: connect students with the books they want to read! If a student enjoys mysteries, having all the mysteries together allows the student to find new authors in the genre of choice. We have so many great books that are somewhat "lost" because a student who would enjoy it might not look at that particular shelf when browsing.
So the question becomes" "Would this book be enjoyed once in a genre location?" This was easy to answer for some non-circulating books, but not so easy for others. Why not leave the books and see? Well, moving to a genre organized collection is a lot of work. The more books, the more work you have to do. Each book is labeled by genre, then genres are separated to new shelves. Finally, each book must have a sublocation created in the library program to help students find them from the online catalog and to aid in inventory at the end of the year. This means weeding the collection in advance is a time-saver in the long run.
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