Yonatan Zunger (zunger) wrote,
Yonatan Zunger
zunger

Amusing facts about the Mountain View Public Library

The Odyssey is filed under non-fiction. When I asked the girl at the checkout desk about this, she said "That's weird. That's, like, science fiction, right?"

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen are filed under fiction, under their author -- Baron Munchausen.

The car manuals for Honda Civics are all filed under car manuals, but some years are under "Honda" and others under "Civic."

The catalogue lists identical books under separate entries, and often multiple copies of the same book are filed in different sections of the library.

Is there a librarian in the house? Anywhere?

(Although to be fair: Apart from the total lack of organization, it's a remarkably pleasant library. Very good places to sit and read or work.)
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  • 4 comments

adoor

August 22 2002, 03:53:15 UTC 13 years ago

as a person with bookstore experience, i feel comfortable in assuming that the library has placed different copies of the same book in multiple section for the same reason we would--because someone (sometimes even a staff member) would come in and say something along the lines of "hey! this book may be science, but it's also a travelogue!" and then complain that nobody would know where to look. it's done with the intention of making things fairly easy to find, but this breaks down when several copies have been checked out, all from the obvious sections, and you're looking for that last copy that's in some obscure section.
am i the only one who misses the old card catalogue system, where we could just put the fekkin' CARD in multiple sections? but then, i might as well be a card-carrying member of the future librarians of america, so i think i'm supposed to be all boring and reactionary and talk endlessly about the dewy decimal system....
of course, i don't know if i even spelled that correctly, so maybe not.
t