Bugbear number 3 gazillion and 22. Some genius (possibly of the genus cantbearsedus or just plain old lazysoddus) has been having a whale of a time making a mess of our shelving system at work. Not only are they shelving books with the pages rather than the spines facing out (so you can’t tell what the book is…duh) but they’ve been making some very silly decisions about where to put things.
Today Arnold was driven demented while looking for a book called “The History of the Eye” which should have been in science, but instead turned up in the first aid section of health, then he found “The Biography of Zero” (about the number) in biography, and then he also discovered a book in the same section about a history of some bomber plane or other. Well, as he said himself; “Planes do have very eventful lives.” but we both thought that was what our military history section was for… Seems I’m not the only one getting very tired of having to engage in massive lateral-thinking sessions when looking for particular books, the store manager found a books I’d spent hours looking for yesterday in the Irish history section, sandwiched between books on the troubles – the book? “Ryanland” which belongs in travel writing. It even says so on the back. While returning it to its rightful home I discovered that the travel writing section was looking like it had been shelved by a dyslexic/aphasic hippo, and had to spend 20 minutes re-alphabetising it. (Note: we shelve alphabetically by author’s name. It says so on the shelves.). Whoever had messed it all up couldn’t decide whether to shelve by the first name or surname of the author, or by the title of the book. It would seem they settled on a mixed system. A system which means they were shelving stuff randomly. Which is a big help. Not.
