Sub-Collections in the Library: Organizational Issues

An interesting feature of this library is the presence of several loosely curated "sub-collections" within the collection, which apparently the previous librarian put together out of student interest. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell how these were chosen or based on what information, since there doesn't seem to be any evidence left lying around. I had to figure out what they were based on student questions and finding them in various shelves that didn't match the rest of the area, and am now pondering whether to move or change them as I go.

There are two general small collection types: series fiction, such as Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians series or the popular Magic Tree House books, and themed collections, such as "any books about Star Wars" or "any books for grades 2-4 about fairies".

These seem like neat ideas on their own! But my problem with them is that they're super inconsistent, which made figuring out what and where they were difficult for me to start with, and makes using them for their intended purpose - students being able to find their subject/series of interest easily - harder than it should be. For example, all comic strips are collected in such a sub-collection - except, inexplicably, for some Peanuts volumes that remain shelved with the hardback fiction, even though some other Peanuts books are in that sub-collection. Even messier are split series, such as J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, which sees its paperback editions separated as a sub-collection, but keeps its hardback editions in the normal fiction, so that students who go to one place or the other keep leaving because if the book they wanted was checked out, they have no idea we might have another copy.

Some of these collections are seeing pretty heavy use and definitely deserve to be displayed collected together for student ease; for example, the Star Wars section is frequented by kids from K through 4 all the time, and they would definitely have a harder time finding the many different authors and formats that contribute to that collection if they were dispersed throughout the library. But some of the series selected out definitely don't see any use, probably because they're older and have fallen out of interest in the meantime: the Mary-Kate and Ashley series, the late 80s/early 90s Gymnasts series, and so on. This suggests to me that the sub-collections haven't been updated in a long time, or that new materials that the library acquires are added to them where necessary, but old ones aren't actively curated or changed.

So: how to fix those, and when? Obviously the system could use some going over, not to mention clearer labeling and more advertising so kids can actually find the sub-collections they might be interested in. The principal has asked me to do an end-of-the-year inventory in the summer, so maybe at that point would be a good moment for assessment, especially since I'll be pulling usage stats anyway?