to wonder if this is a new trend in librarianship?

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

There is too much excitement on MN at the moment so here is a really boring thread.

We have a new library in our town. It is very nice and new and shiny, with lots of good books.

However the adult books seem to be divided into two categories, Fiction and Information.

if you look more closely there is actually a crime section in Fiction, but you can only tell from which books are in it, there's no sign.
And as for the 'Information' section, it is impossible to find anything because firstly the categories are weird, (for instance there is one that is a mixture of misery memoirs and apparently random non-fiction ranging from Aric Sigman's book on why tv is bad, to how to make a will) and secondly there are no signs or labels other than 'Information' above each bookcase.

What is going on? At first I thought they just hadn't got round to it but they've been there a couple of months now. Is this a new craze among librarians? Has someone told them it's 'best practice' not to have stuff with words on because it will put off less confident readers?

madness! hope it doesn't catch on

whatever happened to 'non-fiction'?

we have that in our library, I thought it was just because it was such a tiny library. I never go in because its so small its pointless.

Do they have a computer that tells you where books you want are? Are the books indexed?

How on earth can a library only have two sections for adult books?

You need to look in the guide to dewey classification.

I've only ever been in libraries where the bookcases are headed with the dewey numbers.
You look in the guidebook and then go to that numbered section.

It may be because it is being run by volunteers or untrained personnel. Or just totally understaffed.
I heard a piece on R4 yesterday bemoaning the fact that some libraries are now being staffed solely by volunteers. At the time I thought "methinks the librarian doth protest too much, how hard can it be to keep a few books in order?" But now I am proved wrong (again).

even academic libraries have more signs than this IME.

I shouldn't need a Dewey guidebook to wander round my local library looking for books on quilting! I should be able to go to 'Arts and crafts'! how inaccessible is that?!

hmm, I don't think they're volunteers but they might well be untrained and not librarians. It's the council Customer Service Centre as well so perhaps the staff really belong to that and just do a bit of book-reshelving on the side. There do seem to be an awful lot of shelving errors (Louise Rennison in with the Rainbow Fairy level type stuff).

My library keeps being reorganised. I went in last week to get some books and didn't find any I wanted. Not one cookbook on baking. The sections, while well signposted, seem to be much smaller than they were.

Does anyone think library stocks are being run down?

maybe they're going to install some more computer terminals Werewolf. Or a sound system.

That's weird. My mum is a librarian so I have to disagree that this is a boring thread :o

She told me that in protest to a prospective closure of a library the customers took out every single book at once :)

There are certainly plenty of computers and a whole section of desks for HRMC, where the librarians used to be. And self-service tills points.

they're all being Library Assistants now - because they don't have to be degree qualified and therefore are paid less.
and oh! know less, too!

i have a friend who left the libraries because she was fed up with the changes that were being implemented and basically degrading the librarians.

Oh don't worry! It'll be closed down soon.

we have the self-service check-out points. The flaw in the plan is that there is always one book in your heap that won't work, or it gets over-enthusiastic and checks them out before you have even put them on the reader (how the heck does it do that?) and they end up on the wrong ticket, or it checks them out twice.....so you have to find a member of staff anyway.

Well I'm a librarian, and that sounds bizarre to me. No doubt, someone high up in the local council management (someone who isn't a librarian, that is) degreed that standard "fiction" and "non-fiction" sections were too difficult to understand, and it needed to change.

Or, like choccyp1g says, it could be that there are no qualified librarians working there at all

I work in the academic sector where it's a lot different, but public libraries, especially shiny new public libraries, consciously do not want to look or feel like a typical library. It's almost like the word "library" is a dirty word with too many negative connotations. Hence Tower Hamlets public libraries being named "Idea Stores".

Probably no budget allocation for signage, no professional librarian input at branch level anymore, possibly also a Head of Department who is not a librarian decided that Dewey is elitist and used by white middle class library staff to oppress customers.

Library bookstocks have been run down so that councils can then point to lower borrowing statistics and use these to justify closing branches.

snigger @ 'Ideas Stores'

I think I should complain then. If only to help make the point that when non-librarians try to do librarians' jobs they don't do it very well.

oh, and seth, those self-issue terminals can cost £100,000 each - which would pay the annual salary of four/five library assistants who can also answer questions and help customers out when not stamping books

!!!!!
there are two.

Where I work, it's sort of the other way around. Rather than the qualified staff being made redundant in favour of library assistants, here the library assistants have been made redundant, so qualified staff are having to do tasks they are desperately overqualified for (staffing circulation desks, shelving, etc.)

My job is getting systematically deskilled to such an extent I wonder why I bothered doing a Masters. I decided to get pregnant to get away from it all

Stop it. Idea Stores? FFS

I thought libraries got wierd a few years ago when they stopped filing fiction alphabetically by aauthor and divided it into crime, family sagas, etc

Self issue machines costing £100,000 each? Pull the other one! I've no idea what ours cost, but there's NO WAY ON EARTH it was anything like that.