Organizing the Classroom Library

Most of us have quite a few books in our classroom libraries! We collect and hoard paperbacks and old hardbacks and buy our favorites when we can. I personally started this collecting in college, which resulted in tote bins of children's books that sat unread for a few years. But now my students each have their own book bin and browsing rights in my class library. It's awesome! I had such wonderful readers thanks to Daily 5 and our literacy curriculum. But at the end of the year, my library was a mess. It took me a long time to go through all of the books. I devised a system for cataloging that is Kindergarten friendly.
I found these: http://www.reallygoodstuff.com/product/book+basket+label+set.do and used sticker dots and a permanent marker.

For science books, I used a green dot and drew the outline of a leaf. I marked that bin and every book that goes in it with a dot. Above, you see a collection of "Story Box" books from old curriculum. I used red dots with a square to mark all of these.
I plan to take some time to teach through interactive modeling, a Responsive Classroom core practice http://www.originsonline.org/responsive-classroom/about-approach/core-practices , and really make sure this cataloging system is put to use. I purposely put the dots on the front of each book to make it easy! If you're worried about aesthetics, you can put the sticker around the binding or on the back. I just wanted it to be easy.