It's been a busy fall and so when I'm in the stacks I'm not surprised to see things a little untidy -- that means people are getting into the collection!
I do notice some things going on that are hard on the books, though. We don't need our books to last for all times, yet we do want to protect the money we have invested in them. Check out the two books below. The one on the left has a slant to the spine -- that will weaken it faster and it will need to be replaced. Plus it looks kinda tacky. NP shuns tackiness! The one on the right has a straight spine, but it's showing signs of being pulled down from its top edge, which isn't great, either.
Too Tight
One thing we can do to avoid this kind of wear-and-tear is to make sure books aren't smashed too tightly by the bookend, as below.
Click the arrow on this one to see more.
Here's a better way. (Bonus material: "editing" blooper!)
Sometimes, making enough breathing room means moving four or five books from the end of the shelf down one shelf, or some from the beginning up one. Sticking books on top of or in front of other books is tempting, but it's just not the NP way.
Shifting books is a drag -- especially when you suspect that when you shelve this row tomorrow you'll just shift back -- but it's better for the books. NP librarians follow a schedule for weeding the collection, but we like to keep a dialog going: let us know about areas that need extra attention.
Spine Down
Here's another sad book. See how the pages are pulling away from the spine? The next step is that the endpaper tears and we have to repair it. Rough handling by patrons can cause this.
And so does shelving a big book like this with the pages down. The text block wants to pull away when it's like this.
To help these big books last longer, shelve them spine down.
Thanks for all you do to Keep NP Beautiful!
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