(no subject)
Jun. 16th, 2009 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lloll4So, back from China. And need things to read that aren't in Chinese.
You know what I hate about the library? (Yeah, given my love of reading it'd seem like I love the library, but not really. I have much fondness for the old Stamford building, but library-wise... most days it's a qualified hate.)
Well, back in the days I adored the library, I still hated it at the same time because of the shiver-inducing air-conditioning, and these days I still go weekly because of my addiction to knitting books that I can't afford. (And yes, fiction.)
What I hate about it now: the utterly stupid reshelving ploy that has now divided up a perfectly usable Dewey system into unconnected chunks. Y'know, as part of their efforts to make libraries more appealing to people, the library board came up with the idea of shelving books by topic. And zoning them. Such as, all the history books here. All the physics books there. It's madness, because while the cookery books are all here, the food science books are nowhere to be found. This is beyond irritating when you attempt to navigate via the Dewey system. You think, ah, food, and go to the cookery book section (actually 641.8), whereas the book about how champagne is made at 641.22 is nowhere to be found. And then you ask a librarian, who also has no idea where 641.22 is.
So terribly useful.
Or why all the dressmaking books are shelved in a different spot from the books about fashion. Because y'know, they are actually. related. topics? I really, really wish the library would shelve non-fiction books in actual Dewey order. If they would like to highlight certain subjects, could that not be at the expense of actual shelf coherence?
And don't get me talking about the fiction.
***
John Scalzi slagging NYT and bloggers. Tho' what he says of bloggers? Totally true. Well, that doesn't bode well for the continued existence of this blog. Ah, we shall see.
You know what I hate about the library? (Yeah, given my love of reading it'd seem like I love the library, but not really. I have much fondness for the old Stamford building, but library-wise... most days it's a qualified hate.)
Well, back in the days I adored the library, I still hated it at the same time because of the shiver-inducing air-conditioning, and these days I still go weekly because of my addiction to knitting books that I can't afford. (And yes, fiction.)
What I hate about it now: the utterly stupid reshelving ploy that has now divided up a perfectly usable Dewey system into unconnected chunks. Y'know, as part of their efforts to make libraries more appealing to people, the library board came up with the idea of shelving books by topic. And zoning them. Such as, all the history books here. All the physics books there. It's madness, because while the cookery books are all here, the food science books are nowhere to be found. This is beyond irritating when you attempt to navigate via the Dewey system. You think, ah, food, and go to the cookery book section (actually 641.8), whereas the book about how champagne is made at 641.22 is nowhere to be found. And then you ask a librarian, who also has no idea where 641.22 is.
So terribly useful.
Or why all the dressmaking books are shelved in a different spot from the books about fashion. Because y'know, they are actually. related. topics? I really, really wish the library would shelve non-fiction books in actual Dewey order. If they would like to highlight certain subjects, could that not be at the expense of actual shelf coherence?
And don't get me talking about the fiction.
***
John Scalzi slagging NYT and bloggers. Tho' what he says of bloggers? Totally true. Well, that doesn't bode well for the continued existence of this blog. Ah, we shall see.