I'd like to leave this here as my favorite South Park quote of all time.

ghotijosh · 9 days

it is. i think it applies well to some other people, also

traumazulu · 9 days

well shoot, now that you've told reddit, it's gonna be full in no time.

ghotijosh · 24 days

Our DVDs are very popular. I have always seethed when our branch manager weeds out large sections of books to make room for popular titles or bestsellers because I believe that having out-of-print or really rare titles is one great thing about a public library. Getting rid of that faintly obscure book from the library pretty much means it doesn't exist anywhere unless you want to pay collector's prices for it online.

ghotijosh · 24 days

from what i hear, our library is more retarded than that. we would organize by category (possibly NOT alphabetically), and then by title. the way you describe does sound a lot more workable.

i don't have a problem necessarily with moving away from a traditional system (like dewey) because it's a tradition and i love tradition or anything -- i have a problem with moving away from a system that for the most part works and going to a system that just sounds like a clusterfuck all for the purpose of removing confusing numbers.

ghotijosh · 24 days

we did just tag our entire section with RFID, and there are rumors of (affordable) systems that would allow libraries to simply zap an entire row and see where everything is.

unfortunately, stuffing things on a shelf would make it impossible for patrons to find anything unless they looked it up on a computer every time they came in.

ghotijosh · 24 days

YES! I win then!

ghotijosh · 24 days

that sounds unnecessarily complex

ghotijosh · 24 days

i think keeping Dewey and adding a color-coding thing would be trying to mash two different systems together. the color-coding that's demonstrated in the frankfort library link is, as far as i can tell, a new system that tries to consolidate far-flung sections (like languages and travel sections) into one big section, or at least two section that are now closer together, instead of separated by 500 numbers like they are under Dewey.

Also, the library is planning on switching away from Dewey in the children's section as well.

ghotijosh · 24 days

good point, and one that is brought up by people when I ask about the new section -- separated sections are supposedly going to be brought closer together. and I'm aware that there's a lot of inconsistency in the current filing systems of a lot of libraries. I think this could be resolved, however, by doing an audit of the books we have and relabeling or recategorizing them, instead of tossing out the framework we already have.

ghotijosh · 24 days

looking it up on the computer system is a good point -- how, i wonder, is a patron going to find the specific location of a book without having to browse through the entire section? either the sections are going to be pretty broad-ranged and therefore unnavigable, or they are going to be narrowed down pretty specifically in which case there will be a million topic sections (and a million different color-codes?)

ghotijosh · 24 days

i did ask about what the spine labels were going to look like. unfortunately, nobody seems to know what the fuck is going on around here. there seem to be three options: just having a color-coded spine label, with the book being going into the correct color-coded section sorted alphabetically by title (let me tell you how much of a nightmare that would be with non-fiction books); having a spine label with the section title on it (i.e., SELF-HELP, or SPORTS, or whatnot) and then again sorted down alphabetically by title; or having a spine label with the section title AND a Dewey or other type of reference number on it, which would make reading the actual spine impossible.

ghotijosh · 24 days

that is my concern, that it will be difficult/impossible to FIND anything specific. the system that they want to switch to sounds great for browsing, i suppose, but i always view a library as a place to find specific material. browsing's great for fiction, but i think less useful for non-fiction.

ghotijosh · 24 days

did not know that. i guess it would be an advantage to switch to something else. but could a library use its own decimal-based system that is not exactly dewey? i find the decimal system helpful because you can continue to add new material and topics to an already-existing framework. when the dds was started, there was no such thing as a computer section, for example, but they could still be shoehorned in.

ghotijosh · 24 days

i think the debate comes down to "pandering" to patrons (for lack of a better word) or maintaining a certain level of professionalism. but some people argue that maintaining that level amounts to elitism.

ghotijosh · 24 days

ah, yeah, you win that one

samlir · 1 month

i'm still amazed by how much control he had over the english language, especially considering it wasn't even his first language.

NotQuitePorter · 1 month

every time i read transmetropolitan, it makes me want to write. that is really, to me, the highest praise i can give to a book (or other type of media).

sidenote: my uncle went to elementary school with darick robertson and even had a class photo with him. i wanted to put it up on reddit for the fanboy karma, but my uncle took it off his facebook before i could.

djhworld · 1 month

i work for a county government, but because i'm at lower level, i'm considered to be "extra-help" and i don't get any vacation days or paid time off. i get a few national holidays off with pay, but nothing besides that.

kacperp · 1 month

i actually really liked the narrative style of dracula -- i thought the diary/letter entries were interesting, mainly because i hadn't ever read anything in that style before. i also read neal stephenson's baroque cycle, which i found interesting until i reached the section that was a series of letters between characters (somewhere around the middle third of the series?) and then i almost lost interest.

thinking i should go back and read dracula again to see if it still holds me.

also thought everything about renfield was awesome

crackduck · 3 months

good. the LRA is fucked up beyond all belief.

ringopendragon · 3 months

the US border patrol?

ghotijosh · 3 months

thanks! i'll look into that

ghotijosh

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