With that I have made a decision that many librarians will not agree with but we have to pick our battles, do we not? It is well known in libraries that books should be shelved with the spines out and lined neatly up about half an inch from the lip of the shelf. This helps the shelves look even and doesn't allow for smaller books to be pushed further back than larger ones. Like this:
Looks nice, doesn't it? Well I want to be the person to tell you that it is all a sham! Those neat rows of books are a horrible pain in my librarian rear end and I am not afraid to say it. See students come in and they pull books off those shelves, and in the process shove the entire row or parts of the rows back which leaves me with half neat shelves and half messes ones. And here is where my dilemma arises. I spend hours a week fixing shelves where the books have been shoved back--pulling them back into their neat little rows--just to have a student come in behind me and wreck it all. So, do I keep wasting this time making neat rows as is "proper" library shelf etiquette? Well of course not.
From now on all of my shelves will hold books that are pushed back and not neatly lined up. I mean why fight it? Today is the day I push all the books back and rejoice at not so neat, but otherwise cleaned and organized, rows!
