A very satisfying part of my job is sorting the books back into order that YOU the general public have just shoved back in any old place.
Fiction should be in author order, but we also split it by genre and quick read displays are in no order at all, making it difficult to find specific books - it would almost be easier to sort them in colour order. Not all authors fit neatly into one genre: Charlaine Harris pops up in Horror, Supernatural Fantasy and Crime, for example and China Mieville is all over the place. I'm not entirely sure which shelf my putative best-selling novel will eventually end up on.
So the precision of the Dewey decimal system is very welcome in non-fiction. That doesn't always mean you can find exactly what a borrower wants: if someone wants a picture of a unicorn you’ll be all over the place - in mythical creatures, nursery rhymes, fantasy art, and end up in heraldry.
Now I've got the gist of the system the world feels more organised, but I still worry about stuff: in the health section: the back ache books are on the highest shelf, osteoporosis on the lowest, yet the yoga ones are perfectly easy to reach – when it should those you have to stretch for. The dementia books have been abandoned on a nearby table but at least the books on OCD are returned to the shelf in perfect order.
In the children’s library they have whole sections on volcanoes and dinosaurs, and at least half of the books are something to do with underpants (*sniggers*). One day one of these little cherubs will be all grown up and sitting behind a big desk saying: "That library assistant changed my life. She encouraged me to read and that’s what got me where I am today: Professor of Underpants."
In my library (I work weekends as a library assistant) they mix up the non-fiction so it's labelled by Dewey decimal but not in the right order on the shelves.
ReplyDeleteI know.
AAAAAAAAARRRGGHHHHHH!!!! (oops - did I say that out loud?... shhhh)
DeleteI'm a firm believer in letting the book find you - no matter which shelf it's on! :)
ReplyDeleteOooh - I like this Jinksy!
DeleteAlthough I'm not sure about telling a borrower who's looking for something specific: 'It will find you!' lol
I must still have something of the pre-schooler in me, because that 'Professor of Underpants' line keeps making me laugh.
ReplyDeleteMe too! It's right up there with Doctor Snot!
DeleteAll the books in my house are in 'topic' sections, and then those sections are in alphabetical order. It means I can find what I need quickly. Can you tell I wanted to be a librarian? Can you also tell I need to get out a bit more?
ReplyDeleteHa ha! I didn't know Dewey at all before I started, but then I noticed that I had inadvertently sorted my books into an approximation of it merely by instinct ... sounds like you've done the same.
DeleteAlthough there are anomalies in Dewey - not sure why the books about caravans are immediately before the ones about fighting. Then again, we've all spent a wet weekend in a tin box at each others' throats, so maybe there's a logic there.
This is a wonderful post. When I used to work in a bookshop, i developed an obsessive book tidying habit... which I apply to all bookshelves in my house today. we used to get some wonderful characters in the shop. One of my favourites was someone we named 'The Book Licker', and yes, he really did just go around licking the stock. I think it was the next step on from book sniffing, which I will admit to being a bit partial to.
ReplyDeleteLicking? I've never come across that. Although a fellow poet once confessed to doing something MUCH WORSE in his local library as a teenager. I'll say no more.
DeleteClare, you haven't seen the Dutch libraries! Its a complete nightmare finding a book, maybe you can give them some tips.
ReplyDeleteDo you have Tv and all sorts of non-bookish things as well, like they have over here?
Hi Mia! How are you, girl? Yes - we have a screen with ads from the council, but there's no sound on it and it faces away from the counter so we can't see it! We have DVDs, music, reading groups reading aloud during opening hours, and we once had a thirty-piece ukulele orchestra (I'm not even joking!).
DeleteI have always loved the DDS. It is so easy to find everything.
ReplyDeleteI alphabetise my own books in various categories. And DVDs, CDs, etc :)
... I do too! Also my herbs, but not my clothes - that would be silly: they go in colour order obviously.
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