Adventures in Shelving - Part 01 In a series of however many times weird things happen in the library....the Infinite Series.

As a lowly shelver, I witness some pretty interesting things. Strange people who stare, others who sleep. Numerical transpositions, books shelved upside down or spines in. Late parent pickups, unfound books desperately needed for finals, temporarily lost children. Bird books mislabeled as bat books, children's' books whose titles seem innocent enough, but read from the wrong perspective...a little too graphic for the young ones?

I take my job rather seriously, for good and bad. I'm obsessed with numbers and order as well as with people watching, which makes my job harrowing and easy. Fascinating and horrifying. Maybe it's good that I only work 15 hours a week, yes?

One time as I was shelving in the yoga section, I found a book shelved incorrectly. Not only was it incorrectly shelved, but it's real home was far from the yoga books. I decided to put it away since it probably felt uncomfortable around so many pictures of smiling ladies stretching away in unitards.

The book seemed to get lighter as I approached its correct shelf. Ah, yes, here is my rightful place, it seemed to say. My eyes scanned the call numbers to find the correct resting place of the book in my hand when I found ...another incorrectly shelved book exactly where my book should be. Coincidence? Maybe. I decided to investigate.

I replaced the books. I took this new one, for which I already felt less sympathy, one aisle away to its real home.

And guess what I found. Another misplaced book. Exactly. Exactly where this other one was supposed to go. Someone was playing a game with me. Someone was wasting my time. I looked around to make sure no one was watching me. This was slightly embarrassing. Scavenger hunts are fun, but not while you're working, and especially when you seem to be the only one playing.

I put the correct one away. I took this new joker out (it was laughing at me). Read its call number and found that it belonged one shelf above where it had been incorrectly placed, almost directly above where it had been.

I'd had enough. Thankfully, I found no wrong book where the other should have been. If I HAD found one, I wouldn't have shelved it. I was getting annoyed. And just a little paranoid.


I still don't know if that was all coincidence. I do find books all the time that are shelved incorrectly, whether by shelver's or patron's mistake (or mischief), but never to that extent. That was just during the first month of working at the library. That was just one not-so-strange story. And one without library patrons in it. You know there's more. Many, many more....