The Organization

This is how much shelving I have to do in a typical week. Of course we're only open for 14 hours a week, so I couldn't acquire too much, but compared to the shelving I've had to do in previous libraries, this is shelving heaven!!! I probably spend 10-15 minutes a week shelving materials.

Now, we are presented with a paradox. Since the library is so small, it's very easy to keep everything in order. Not a lot of people come in and shuffle things around, and if they do it doesn't take much time to fix it. But, is it really necessary to keep everything in perfect order if you can find something relatively fast if it is misplaced because it's probably not very far away? It's just a shame that is has to be this way because I know how important it is to try and keep everything in order in a much bigger library, and also how much harder it is - almost impossible! Oh well.

One of the reasons it doesn't take long to shelve books, at least a lot of them, is because all the children's picture books, early readers, and paperbacks are shelved only by the first initial of the author's last name. It's sooo much easier than shelving those tiny books by the author's full last name. On the flip side though, it can be much tougher to find a specific book in these sections when you're looking for one. But usually it doesn't take that long, because even at the main branch there aren't a gazillion books to look through.

Another thing that makes shelving easy is the way we catalog non-fiction. Of course the book gets a dewey number, but it's usually not taken out to a really long decimal, which is nice, and then instead of the author's full last name it is only given the first inital of the author's last name. This makes it much easier to shelve because you can eyeball it pretty quickly. And again, since the collection isn't extremely huge, even at the main library, it doesn't take long to find the book you're looking for.