ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-06-04 08:35 pm

Books

For my librarian friends:

I found this post about how to deal with people who purposely misfile library books to hide topics they dislike: find the books, scan them, and then put them on the display shelf. If every effort to discourage a topic results in encouraging it instead, this will quickly undermine that behavior. Or hey, promote the hell out of suppressed topics, which is also a good thing.


PSA: Stop Hiding The Gay Books

Dudes. Jerks. Wine Moms.

Stop hiding the gay books.

This has been happening all year, btw. I haven't noticed a marked increase of this kind of behavior since Pride started. It's been going on for months.

But y'all. You're wasting your time. You might think you're wasting mine, but I reshelve books all day long, whether they got moved accidentally or on purpose. Who do you think will get bored faster?



Oh, also: when you have to reshelve things, you also scan them, which flags them in the system as "in library use," meaning the computer goes, "Hey, people read this a lot! Let's keep it FOREVER!"

So: I will find them. And every time I do, I will move them to the DISPLAY shelf. You came in with an agenda and an hour of bigotry to perform during your lunch break.

I'm here every day for eight hours in a row. You won't win this.

As you were
.
viridian5: (Me Looking Back)

[personal profile] viridian5 2025-06-05 02:05 am (UTC)(link)
Somebody at my local CVS keeps hiding copies of Daily News under a copy of New York Post, which has basically been Trump's Pravda for years. If I'm there and I see that, I always move it back. It's not like New York's Daily News is even liberal.
goatgodschild: (Default)

In the Hands of Babes...

[personal profile] goatgodschild 2025-06-05 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
I tend to think that misfiled books are done from a neutral view, as I rarely find ones that appear to be moved for ideological purposes. For instance, today there was a (very sticky!) copy of Euclid's Elements lying on a shelf in the Local History section.

Since I mostly work in the children's area, books are regularly put back out of order in all sorts of ways, most often by small children who are trying to be helpful.
moonhare: (Default)

Re: In the Hands of Babes...

[personal profile] moonhare 2025-06-07 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
The children’s room at our library was the most challenging to keep in order! When looking for books to fill holds one had to be persistent in searching above, below, and nearby if an item was not where it should have been.
thewayne: (Default)

[personal profile] thewayne 2025-06-05 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes and no.

Different libraries have different amounts of display area(s). We don't. Our display areas are fairly carefully curated since we have such little space. But also, since we're not a public library, we don't really have a problem with people coming in and purposely mis-shelving books.

But the OP is absolutely right: the books should be scanned as in-library use, guaranteeing they won't be weeded soon.
daryl_wor: tie dye and spiky bat (Default)

[personal profile] daryl_wor 2025-06-06 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Had to pass this along to a library friend, thank you.
kellan_the_tabby: My face, reflected in a round mirror I'm holding up; the rest of the image is the side of my head, hair shorn short. (Default)

[personal profile] kellan_the_tabby 2025-06-17 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
passing this along!