nerdy librarian argument: Where to put Harry!

[orangerful]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (the rehearsal script) will be published on July 31st and cataloging librarians are having fun debating where this book should live (when it eventually gets to a shelf...which might take awhile

Comments

[therck]

Hm. I'm not up on such decisions for public libraries. When I was working, it was in a university library that used LC for everything except literature. All literature got Dewey call numbers.

Well, I worked at a tiny public library in high school. I think they would have gone for two copies and shelved one in children's fiction and one in the adult section as an 800.

Of course, they'd be really wary about it because it's the sort of book that's apt to go out and never come back. When I worked there, we had a massive waitlist for everything V.C. Andrews ever did, but each copy we got went out once and never came back no matter how many phone calls we made, so the board made it policy that we would never buy copies, just accept donated ones.

We tended to skimp on the work of adding new copies to the collection, too. We were supposed to cover all paperbacks in contact paper, but we didn't see the point for those. Property stamp, date due pocket, and a call number, that was it. This was pre-computer, so we didn't have to jump through any hoops that way.

[orangerful]

LOL oh V.C. Andrews. I just weeded a few of those the other day for condition, still very popular but apparently people get so excited their spit their water (god I hope it was water) all over the pages so I had to toss it.

We had a similar issue with GED study guides and for awhile our materials department didn't buy very many. But it's not really fair to punish the good people for the act of a few bad apples.

I think my head would explode if they tried to shelve it in two sections. I don't roll that way - one or the other LOL.

[therck]

I think that policy might have been different on something like a GED study guide than on mass market paperbacks. That is, I think the assumption was that any adult who wanted one of the books was likely to be able to afford the two or three dollars that it would cost. Study guides cost a lot more, and the people who need them most are the people who can least afford them.

But I'd expect the study guides to get limited to building use only.