Her Royal Grumpiness is all grumpified today. For two reasons: 1) Glasses; 2) The Book Place.

Short version: New prescription eye glasses ain’t working. Only way Her Momness can read a computer screen is by tilting her head up and looking through the bottom of the lenses. So not happenin’. What was that optometrist thinking? So annoying.

The Children’s Section of the Library –  Her Momness practically lives there, go figure – has re-catalogued its picture book collection. You can’t find books arranged in alphabetical order by author’s last name. Nopers. Some rocket scientist came up with the brilliant idea of arranging picture books by subject. It’s called “Picture Book City.”

Kimber: I bet the neighbor’s cat came up with that stroke of genius. Geez.

The problem is, how does a library patron know in what “city” grouping some random librarian decided to shelf a specific book? What if we think a book belongs in a certain category, but the librarians think it goes some place else? How are we supposed to find anything?

Examples:

Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal can be found under Explore. But the book also has a mama bear and a baby bear. And a little girl. So why isn’t it housed under Animals or Families or all of the above? Who decides? Based on what? And what if we think differently than they do?

H.A. Rey’s Curious George is housed in the Popular section/shelf. But it’s about the adventures of a little monkey and the world around him. So couldn’t it also be housed under Animals, Explore, or Community?

Love You Forever is under Growing Up. Fine. But why not Families?

The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Horton Hears a Who can be found in the Popular section. Why not in Animals?

The Runaway Bunny? It’s under Families. But couldn’t it also fit in Explore, Emotions, or Animals?

See what we mean about the neighbor’s cat?

Muddying matters further, instead of finding all of one author’s titles in one place, they’re now spread out all over the Children’s Section. Grouped according to book “city,” dontcha know.  Want to grab some titles by Margaret Wise Brown? First you need to know that The Runaway Bunny is in Families. The Big Red Barn is in Animals. And Goodnight Moon is in Bedtime.

See why Her Grumpiness is all grumpified? Whatever happened to cataloguing books in alphabetical order by author last name? When Mom smiled sweetly and inquired about that, the response was basically: looking for library books in alpha order by author last name is just too much for some patrons. Hence the scrambled eggs approach.

Newsflash: Those of us who’ve been happily locating library books by author’s last name since dinosaurs roamed the earth aren’t terribly fond of scrambled eggs.

Hopefully we fare better with the glasses thing. You’d think you’d at least be able to see for $835 (insurance covered the lion’s share). Or maybe buy a small tropical island. Cuz glasses you can actually use kinda matter if you want to be able to read. Grump, grump, grump…

Kimber: I see those looks! Those “uh oh” looks some of you hoomans are wearing. Cuz besides being the beauty AND the brains in this outfit, I’m also psychic! One of my 18 million gifts. So…

Squirrel!

Wait. Where was I?

Oh yeah. Those uh-oh looks. 

Just in Case

Well. In case some of you are a wee bit worried-ified about The ‘Ole Curmudgeon, don’t be. In fact, take a chill pill. Cuz it’ll all work out. Be magnificent. Munificent. Perfect. And Totally PAWsome!

How do I know this? Easy. Mom has me!

So there!

Now to get back to my snoozing…

 

Has your library recently adopted a new cataloging/display system? Your thoughts?