to reshelve or not to reshelve
I wrote a short story for one of my graduate seminars about a student who was continually finding books in the "wrong" places in the library and wondered who was doing the reshelving. My inspirations for this story were Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and my own frustrations of books that the library system said were available, but had probably been placed on the wrong shelf somewhere and may never be seen again.
Now, some enterprising souls have taken the act of reshelving to a new level. Avant Game has begun a project called the Ministry of Reshelving where people are invited to move copies of George Orwell's 1984
Part of me genuinely pities the poor bookstore clerks who will have to reshelve the reshelved books. I worked too long in retail to not have sympathy for those who have to do it. But another part of me is really amused by the game, especially the book choice and location choices. And at least the "rules" of the game suggest that one should leave a guide to where the books have gone or where they belong.
Would I participate? Probably not. I'm kind of a chicken about some things, interferring with a business being one of them. Would I support a participant? Absolutely. I might even suggest a few other titles that might be appropriately reshelved. Ventura's book
Comments
Not realizing you were in a funk, I bought you a new book and a calendar today at Chickering's. I need to read the book first so wait for it. But, I couldn't remember if it was one you had read or not, so I checked your books topics to see if I could find any reference to it. I missed this original posting. I LOVE the idea. And I would try it. I think you would need to case the book store first, plan the book you are moving and why, leave clues as to where the book went. Then go back the next day and see if the book is still where you put it or where it has moved on to. You could then leave a marker where you put the book and return the book to its original location. It would be fun to pick a book, like 1984, and announce in the want ads or something that the time has come to relocate it and then follow up on all the places it goes.
Posted by: Mom | October 7, 2006 12:14 AM
I heard about this reshelving project on NPR a few days ago. The originator of this idea was actually asked about the concern of creating this burden on the book store clerk. She said she's worked in book stores before, so she understands this concern. Her response was that she advocates only doing it once at any one book store and, as you point out, leaving some instruction as to where the "1984" books have gone. I must admit, I got a chuckle out of the whole idea.
Posted by: Carrie | August 26, 2005 03:46 PM