As anyone on Autocat knows, there's been a bunch of posting lately on the difference between bookstores and libraries, and how they organize things. I don't post on autocat much (that's what blogs are for!), so here's what I think:
Anyone who says that bookstores do as good a job as libraries of organizing information is clearly insane. I mean, CLEARLY. A comment was made that the reason we catalog is to a) list everything we have in the stacks and b) find what we're after in those stacks.
And here's the rub. Bookstores only help you find the books you already know you need. As in, I need a copy of Jane Eyre. It's in the Fiction section, under Bronte. Congratulations, now pay us $10.
Now, if I were to say instead "I need a piece of English literature, written in the early-to-mid 19th century, and focusing on romantic love," the bookstore will not help you. The bookstore will look at you blankly and say "literature? Aisle 2."
The comment that was made about "finding what we're after in the stacks" is all well and good, but it presupposes that you already know exactly what you're looking for. Libraries and library catalogs are not built on the presupposition that you know what you want. They're built on the idea that you *kind of* know what you want. If you know exactly what you want, great! That's so much easier. If you don't know, exactly, we have people and catalogs that give you lots of information on subjects so maybe you can find what you need in a relatively short amount of time.
So the whole debate on bookstores and libraries is a bit silly, because they don't serve the same purposes at all, and to say that bookstores perform the same organizational tasks as libraries is ludicrous, and patently untrue.
3 comments:
There's also not an exact call number for specific items though, so it might be hard to find a book if you know the title but not the author (and it could be in a couple different subject areas).
At least I think this is true. I haven't been in bookstores lately.
Right, if you know the title, but not the author, or if it could be in multiple sections, you have to talk to someone and ask. And then I feel guilty if I don't buy the book after making the poor minimum wage employee go up 2 floors to find it for me.
The library has catalogs that people can look up their own stuff in! Not that I mind when people ask me where something is. That's my job, but when I go to a library and know what I want, I don't want to talk to anyone until I hit the circulation desk.
I can never find the nonfiction I'm looking for in a bookstore, even after I know what aisle it's suppose to be in. Then again, the bookstores want you to browse and hopefully find something else you might want to buy. Libraries would like this also (higher circ, more money next year), but priorities are different. We would rather you find exactly what you're looking for first, then browse. :-D
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