News photo by Steve Schulwitz. Alpena County Library librarian Tina Markowski places a colored label on a book in the library on Tuesday. The library is switching from the Dewey Decimal system to the new browse method. This change will help guide library patrons to books in specific subject groups.

ALPENA – The Alpena County Library is in the process of changing the way it categorizes books in hopes of reducing the likelihood that minors will come across books that some people in the area say contain sexually explicit content.

The change in the presentation of the books means that the books in question, such as “Let’s Talk About It”, “It’s Perfectly Normal” and several others, will remain in the Young Adult and Teen section where they currently are, but will be labeled with their subgenre.

In a press release Monday, the library announced that it is moving away from the Dewey Decimal System and moving to the Browse method, which organizes books into nine different categories. The method was designed to make it easier to find books on specific subjects, such as history, science, entertainment, arts and literature, and others.

The subjects of books falling into these categories and subcategories will be easy for users to find, similar to bookstores, the library explained in its press release.

Books about human anatomy and body systems would be catalogued under “Science: Biology, Anatomy and Physiology,” while titles about sexuality, bodily autonomy, and other sex education topics would be catalogued under “Body, Health and Mind: Family Life, Sex Education.”

Assistant Library Director Jessica Luther said in the press release that the move is intended to help guide younger readers and their parents directly to the topics that interest them and reduce the likelihood that someone will accidentally stumble upon one of the books that have been causing controversy in Alpena for about two years.

She said the idea of ​​implementing a different system had been considered for several years, but the library wanted to explore other options before making a decision. Luther said the plan to switch to the browse method really gained momentum in late winter and early spring.

Currently, Luther said, staff are working on changing the classification, labeling and placement of books, but since the youth nonfiction section has over 4,000 books, this will take some time. Once that section is complete, staff will begin the same process in the youth and young adult sections, she said.

“It’s a huge undertaking, but given everything that’s happening with the books and because we want to meet people halfway and address their concerns, we felt this should be a priority,” Luther said. “Our youth team is already working on the transition.”

Luther said each book in those sections would need to be pulled out and assigned to one of the main categories, and then each category would be represented on a book with a color label. She said all the call numbers would need to be changed and the shelves rearranged because not all the books that are there now would be on the shelves with the same books as they are now.

“There are a lot of moving parts,” she said.

Alpena County Commissioners became involved when critics of the books and their locations in the library asked the county for help in moving the books to what they believed was a more age-appropriate area. Many of the commissioners supported having the library board move the books, but library officials said doing so would censor free speech.

Commissioner Burt Francisco said he thought the change in the categorization of books was a good move because it would be easier for parents to identify them, but he still had concerns that minors could borrow the books if they came to the library unaccompanied by an adult.

“Maybe this opens the door for more dialogue and more compromise,” Francisco said. “It makes me optimistic that maybe we can reach a mutual agreement. I’m a little more relaxed, but I’m still worried that a 12-year-old can verify this, but I think we’re closer to an acceptable position.”

Reach Steve Schulwitz at 989-358-5689 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.