Acclaimed Colombian Institution Has 4,800 Books and 10 Legs [NYTimes article]
Great story of Alfa and Beto, the biblio burros, Luis Soriano, their keeper, and the mission they’ve devoted ten years’ of weekends to.
December 18, 2008
November 11, 2008
The Library in the New Age
by Robert Darnton. (The New York Review of Books. 12 Jun 2008)
Late on this. Just saw a May 2008 link from Robert Berkman‘s friendfeed.
The article concludes, Meanwhile, I say: shore up the library. Stock it with printed matter. Reinforce its reading rooms. But don’t think of it as a warehouse or a museum. While dispensing books, most research libraries operate as nerve centers for transmitting electronic impulses. They acquire data sets, maintain digital repositories, provide access to e-journals, and orchestrate information systems that reach deep into laboratories as well as studies. Many of them are sharing their intellectual wealth with the rest of the world by permitting Google to digitize their printed collections. Therefore, I also say: long live Google, but don’t count on it living long enough to replace that venerable building with the Corinthian columns. As a citadel of learning and as a platform for adventure on the Internet, the research library still deserves to stand at the center of the campus, preserving the past and accumulating energy for the future.
Darnton also says (and I concur, oh, how I concur), Information has never been stable. That may be a truism, but it bears pondering. It could serve as a corrective to the belief that the speedup in technological change has catapulted us into a new age, in which information has spun completely out of control. I would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself. It should not be understood as if it took the form of hard facts or nuggets of reality ready to be quarried out of newspapers, archives, and libraries, but rather as messages that are constantly being reshaped in the process of transmission. Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must deal with multiple, mutable texts. By studying them skeptically on our computer screens, we can learn how to read our daily newspaper more effectively—and even how to appreciate old books.
Don’t trust the newspapers. Don’t trust books. For heaven’s sake, don’t trust blogs or online news sources or the story that a friend of a friend told your best friend.
Believe, but believe with healthy skepticism because the more I read and the more I know, the more I know what I read is at least twenty percent balderdash and another twenty percent complete fraud. (And despite her protestations to the contrary, the great great whatever great aunt did not trace his nibs’ family roots back to Lady Godiva and beyond.)
October 5, 2008
Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker’s Library
Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library
Everything from an original Sputnik 1 satellite to a Kelmscott Chaucer.
Oh. My.
September 24, 2008
Book Bay, a dangerous pleasure
After meeting with two flooring contractors for bids (and calling a third to meet up with tomorrow), we headed over to Book Bay at Fort Mason (the Friends of the San Francisco Library used book store) to look for a copy of Gibbons’ DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — a special request from the younger niblet.
Couldn’t find a copy, but did find several other books I wanted as well as fourteen books on the $.50 (3/$1) table. Couldn’t find a fifteenth, but the staff gave me a deal.
With my Friends of the Library discount and one of the “extra 25% off” coupons they give you when you renew your annual membership, I got 35% off my purchase: eighteen books for $15.60.
But not a DECLINE AND FALL.
Talking it over with his nibs, I realized I should just rummage through the book boxes labeled HISTORY and pick one of the duplicates that isn’t an old, old copy. His nibs remembers having a copy his Aunt Burta bought used back in the first quarter of the last century. I know I had a 2v. copy when I was in my late teens and we probably have other editions as well. I’ll find a good — but not valuable — copy to send. I’m assuming that any book I send to Ukraine will not be coming home in 2010, and I’d hate to have the younger niblet worry about damaging a book I held dear.
Nice trip to Book Bay, though.
September 6, 2008
North Beach library … addendum 1
North Beach Library and why it matters. The original.
Addendum 1:
Someone involved with pushing the Triangle site asked me to explain to her what my issues were. (She’s happy that the Library Commission stamped “go forward” on the paperwork to put the North Beach Library on the Triangle at yesterday’s meeting.)
I wrote back: (some of this you may have seen before)
The location is the wrong one.
Playground supporters would rather not have the Library at Greenwich and Columbus where it would take away some playground space.
Playground supporters and financial issues with the RecParks budget (or lack thereof) are driving what should have been a neighborhood effort to build the best possible library for North Beach.
Instead we are getting a triangular library, a known issue that Brian Bannon told me he had problems with initially as well but he thinks the architect has come up with a solution that will work within the confines of the location.
“Will work”? Is that the best possible library for North Beach?
The Triangle is not the best location for the library. The architect should not be asked to “try” if they can make a less than optimal location work if what we want is the best library possible.
The parcel is 4120 sq ft per assessor’s records. The proposed library is to have a 5700-5950 sq ft footprint. Do the math.
If it =is= possible to squeeze out over existing sidewalks and squeeze into Mason to create a footprint that’s 40% or so larger than the current lot, then we will certainly be at the outer edges of what’s possible within the perimeter bounded by Columbus, Lombard and Mason’s utilities issues.
The library at that site will never grow any bigger. Ever.
It can’t.
… unless you believe in flying pigs who will pay to relocate the works that are under Mason some time in the future when the library is (again) bursting its seams.
The library should be at a site where it can grow, if in the future it needs to. Heck, it should be at a site where it can be larger than what’s proposed for the Triangle from the get-go.
The proposed library site was shifted over to the Triangle because (1) the Triangle turned out not to be as useful an acquisition for RecParks as originally billed and RecParks had no money to develop it anyway and (2) playground supporters didn’t want to give up =any= of the existing playground area.
Shame that.
So we wind up with a subpar library for North Beach with scant additional space after bookcases and tables and chairs and staff workspace &c. and so on are set in a triangular footprint with ADA spacing.
I expected better. I’m really disappointed that there wasn’t more support from Joe DiMaggio supporters and NorthBeach moms & al. to get the library North Beach deserves.
Instead of something genuinely bigger and better and wonderful we’re getting something cramped into the Triangle, putting bulk on a major piece of the Columbus corridor and adding more walls where people were promised open space and greenery during the eminent domain kerfuffle.
Carlo Cestarollo had a fit when I told him about the library plans.
But it’s supposed to be a park, he said. Some place for people to rest as they walk from North Beach to Fisherman’s Wharf. Benches. Shade. A bit of green. When did they change their minds?
Indeed.
We’ll have a new building! Wonderful! We’ll be ADA compliant! Wonderful! We’ll have more computers and all that whizbang! Wonderful. Why Luis Herrera even promises me that we’ll have room to expand the collection by 10-15%!
Wow. Being as our current collection is squeezed and too small already and being as we should be planning a library that should at least be viable for twenty years — scratch that … make it fifty years being as that was the last time we got this opportunity — we should be demanding a building that will handle far far more than a collection expansion of 10-15%. And, to be honest, I think Luis Herrera, whom I like, was giving me the most generous estimate for collection expansion possible because he knew how steamed I was about all this.
I am really disappointed in the location chosen.
Should the library be built there we won’t have the best library we could have had given the possibilities and that is really too bad in the end for the library, residents, families, children, and seniors of North Beach. … and for me.
… and so it goes.
September 4, 2008
North Beach Library and why it matters
I’ve been having a nice back and forth exchange with Luis Herrera, the guy in charge of the San Francisco Public Library, re the Library’s dumb idea to put the new North Beach Library on top of the Triangle.
Some history.
Years back a couple of guys wanted to build a four-story building on the 4120 sq ft triangular piece of land bordered by Columbus, Mason, and Lombard. The top three floors would be “handicapped-accessible” apartments (including one for the 84-year-old mom of one of the owners) and the ground floor would be retail.
The guys had worked their way through the planning process and the neighbors’ objections and finally got approval when our esteemed District 3 Supervisor decided that the land was really needed more for parks and recreation and pushed through eminent domain proceedings for the parcel.
You had neighbors for buying 701 Lombard (the parcel) for parks parks parks. We need every inch of green space we can get, was the cry.
You had neighbors adamantly opposed to using eminent domain to take the parcel.
Oh, what a mess it was.
The parcel was taken through eminent domain. Case closed. Park to follow.
But wait.
Five years later the Triangle re-enters the picture. The parcel has continued to be used for a parking lot because San Francisco Rec and Parks doesn’t have the money to turn the parcel into a park, plus it’s so tiny, plus Mason Street cuts through and separates the parcel from the rest of the Joe DiMaggio Playground, plus it wouldn’t do for the tot playground (too close to busy Columbus), nor the bocce courts (you must be nuts to even consider it), nor …
Enter the Library.
North Beach Library was built fifty years ago and it shows. The library (at its most optimistic) is 5337 sq ft and serves a population of 27K, according to some statistics. (As a notch point realize that all the work to expand the Saratoga Library, which serves 35K as a generous estimate, was to expand it from 18K sq ft to 48K sq ft.)
At a public meeting, Wilma Pang — one of our candidates to replace our esteemed termed-out District 3 Supervisor — said that the Library was too small even when she was growing up way back when. (She’s sixty-seven now.)
Too-ing and fro-ing over the years. Maybe we could put the Library where the boarded up Pagoda Theater sits. That idea was knocked down. Maybe we could. …
So public meetings were held. Three of them. After the second, it seemed the Library was leaning toward tearing down the old library and building a new 8500 sq ft library at the corner of Greenwich and Columbus. Hooray.
At the third meeting, the Library said it had decided the Triangle was the best spot for the Library for various reasons.
The Triangle? I asked Luis Herrera before the third meeting began.
“We’ve worked it all out.” he told me and passed me over to Brian Bannon, head of branch libraries, for soothing. Brian said words to the effect that he hadn’t liked the idea of a triangular library either at first but that the architect had come up with some ideas that would make it work.
Make it work?
Do we want the best library possible for North Beach or do we want one where we go to the architect and say, we know this is a really lame spot for the Library, but can you possibly make it work?
Luis Herrera has been very patient answering all the questions I’ve thrown at him in e-mail, but it still doesn’t work.
How, I asked him, does a 4120 sq ft parcel (per the City Assessor’s records) support a library with a 5700-5950 sq ft footprint. (Plans are for a ground floor of ~ 5900 sq ft for public service areas and an upstairs level that will be 2,800-2,950sf that will include a community room, staff lounge, 2d floor bathrooms, &c.)
Well, of course, we close Mason Street and push as far into Mason as we can without disturbing or blocking access to the utilities that run under Mason. (Oh! Don’t let the neighbors hear about that!)
So the Triangle, as far as I can calculate using my rusty algebra (Hey! There IS a Use For Algebra!) is 85′ on the Lombard side and 96′ on the Mason side. [Anyone want to go out there and measure it for me?] The new footprint, if my Algebra holds, will be 98×107′, pushing thirteen feet across the sidewalk and into Mason and another eleven feet up toward Greenwich.
All of this exercise is, of course, funded by bonds and such that citizens passed to retrofit our aging libraries, to build a couple new branches, to add more computers, and to get the libraries up to current ADA standards. If we had just rearranged stacks &c. at the current library to meet ADA standards, we would’ve lost considerable public space in a library that’s already so cramped.
The theory is that this new library with its 5900 sq ft ground floor will have room to expand the collection 10-15%. Really?
Maybe.
The other feature this new library will have, which has not been mentioned, not even a peep, is no way ever to expand any more. Once we build on the Triangle, we will have pushed the envelope to the edges of the utilities under Mason, which cannot be covered by anything that can’t be dug up when needed. (Think grass, concrete, garden.)
Expand further, should it turn out we need to? No. There will be no way. Ever. Unless, of course, the City bites the bullet and moves the utilities. Did I mention that I was quoted a cost of $2.1million to relocate the tot playground and rework the tennis courts? Imagine what shifting underground utilities would cost!
So who is pushing for the Triangle site? Folks concerned with the Joe DiMaggio North Beach Playground do not want the Library to have a larger footprint and take any playground area. Hey, I’m a member of Friends of Joe DiMaggio Playground and I’ve worked to raise money for the park, but I never realized that a decent library wasn’t important when it came to sharing dirt with the playground. Some people would rather shove the Library onto the Triangle (which turns out to be a pretty useless piece of dirt for the park to utilize) and recapture the dirt where the Library now stands.
Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. It’s all about dirt, isn’t it?
I asked Luis Herrera if anyone had thought of shutting down Greenwich from the west-most garage door to Columbus, freeing up some additional square footage that way. There’d be less squawk than the squawks about closing Mason. The extra dirt the library would need would be offset by the dirt from the closure. The Triangle could be a greenspace with benches and a statue of Joe DiMaggio or whatever.
Well, no. No one had even considered closing Greenwich, because the space available there was sufficient for programmatic needs without pushing onto Greenwich, that is, of course, until the push to use the Triangle came along.
Last week I stopped off to talk with Carlo Cestarollo, who runs the Alfa Center across the street from the Triangle. Had you heard, I asked him, that they’re planning to put the new library on the Triangle? Two stories?
Carlo was flabbergasted. It’s supposed to be a park, he said. Some place for people to rest as they walk from North Beach to Fisherman’s Wharf. Benches. Shade. A bit of green. When did they change their minds?
Good question. When =did= they change their minds? And why?
Last week, I wrote the following to the Library Commission, which meets today to put their stamp of approval on the Triangle location.
I’ve been wondering whether to head down there and do my public testimony. Probably not. After all this bickering back and forth, I’m fed up. Do the people pushing the Triangle location care about libraries or about tennis courts?
Enquiring minds think they know the answer.
Commissioners:
I received a note from Julie Christensen asking me to write a note in support of the plans for our North Beach Library proposed at the August 21 18 Community Meeting. I won’t be doing that, and here are my reasons why.
The Triangle is the wrong place for the proposed “new” library. The people proposing the Triangle as the right place care more about the park and finding some “useful” purpose for the Triangle than they do about our little library that could, our little library that needs more room, more books, more staff space, more everything to better serve our community.
With the public spaces (except for the program room) kept on the ground level at the Triangle site due to staffing issues, the public spaces in the new library will not be much bigger, if any at all, than the old.
Add in staircases and elevators for the second floor program room and staff space, the acute angular corners, and other factors and we wind up with a “new” library but not much of one. Sure we will be ADA compliant, which is important. Sure we will have wiring for additional computers, which is important. The “new” library will have a much-needed teen area (we have the second highest YA circulation in the City) but at what expense for other public spaces?
We’ll have a new building! Yippee! But where’s the added space that’s been needed for decades, let alone any hope for an expanded collection, room for services, or even additional chairs and tables?
The Triangle will give us a new library but none of the extra space, services, facilities that we’ve needed for years.
***
There is no rush to approve the Triangle as the spot for the new library. Take some time to make the right choice, because once the choice is made, even a “preliminary” choice, it will be hard not to fall in line because the choice has been made, and it’s in the works …
Whether the architects can “make do” or “find a way to make it work” is not the question.
Is this the best site for the library?
Is this what is =best= for the library?
Before any decision is made about whether the new library should be on the Triangle, at least two things need to happen in tandem.
Sal Busalacchi, who lives on Mason, suggested at the 21 18 August meeting that instead of =modeling= what =might= happen if Mason is closed, the City should temporarily close the street segment for a month and see what =really= happens to the traffic patterns. Such closure would ease the minds of the neighbors, if the traffic patterns flow as the models suggest, but could put the kibosh on the idea of closing Mason if the traffic patterns change as neighbors anticipate.
While the K-rails blocking Mason are up, label them:
Temporary closure of Mason.
Permanent closure is proposed as part of
plans to build the new North Beach Library
on the Triangle.
In addition to the temporary closure and signage, story poles need to be erected on the Triangle, showing the outline of the new library so that neighbors can see the impact of putting the library there.
Put the K-rails, the signage, and the story poles in place. See how it works out. In the mean time, neighbors can discuss the Triangle location, which is not the location that seemed the location of choice in the meetings leading up to the 21 18 August meeting.
Revisit this question in 2009. Plans to build a new library aren’t even on the 2010 calendar. Take more time to pick the location.
The Triangle is not the right location for the North Beach Library.
Have I mentioned I don’t agree with Julie Christensen’s views on the proposed siting of the new North Beach Library?
Sal Towse
34 Darrell Place
San Francisco, CA 94133
=====================================
What Julie asked us to write:
=====================================
Let them know:
I support a new North Beach Library on the triangle.
I support the conversion of the adjacent block of Mason Street to park land.
I appreciate our department leaders working hard to come up with a real solution to our needs.
The proposed joint Library/RecPark plan (as shown at the Aug 2118 Community Meeting) does the following:
1. Gives us a new, spacious library.
2. Allows the old library to stay open until the new one is ready.
3. Opens up the existing library site to be added to recreation and green space.
4. Lets the library move ahead without waiting for RecPark funding, which we hope will come in a 2013 parks bond, if not sooner.
5. Saves money that will be lost to inflation if the library schedule is delayed.
[Yes, indeed. I did say August 21 instead of August 18 for the meeting date throughout the note. May the kittehs forgive me. ...]
** Addendum 1 **
November 20, 2007
San Francisco election results are in!
Department of Elections: Election Summary
100% of votes counted. Results posted 17 Nov 2007. Only ELEVEN DAYS to count the votes!
35.77% voter turnout. Yay, us! (Really, people. That’s pathetic.)
Mayor: Gavin Newsom with 73.66% of the vote. Next highest vote getter: Quintin Mecke with 6.33% of the vote. Least highest vote getter: Michael Powers (who?) with .36% of the vote.
(Just kidding … “Michael Powers, 42, owns the Power Exchange sex club, which welcomes gays, lesbians, heterosexual couples, and bondage and domination devotees – demonstrating, he says in his official campaign statement, “my capacity to embrace every kind of alternative lifestyle and manage multiple environments housed in one totally law-abiding and successful business.” That record of embracing tolerance, he said, “guarantees that I will listen to all San Franciscans.” [ref: SFGate])
No write-ins at all for mayor. 1.51% write-in for DA. Kamala Harris got the other 98.49% of the vote.
MEASURE
A – passed (55.49) – Transit Reform, Parking Regulation and Emissions Reduction
B – passed (71.21) – Limiting Hold-Over Service on Charter-Created Boards and Commissions
C – passed (68.19) – Requiring Public Hearings on Proposed Measures
D – passed (74.48) – Renewing Library Preservation Fund (Yay! Libraries! They scored even better than Gavin!)
E – failed (51.39) – Requiring Mayor to Appear Monthly at a Board of Supervisors Meeting
F – passed (51.53) – Amending Retirement Benefits for Police Dept. Employees who were Airport Police Officers
G – passed (55.39) – Establishing Golden Gate Park Stables Matching Fund
H – failed (66.95) – Donald Fisher’s effort: Regulating Parking Spaces
I – passed (59.14) – Establishing Office Small Business as City Dept. and Creating Small Business Assistance Center
J – passed (62.26) – Adopting a Policy to Offer Free City-Wide Wireless High-Speed Internet Network
K – passed (61.84) – Adopting a Policy to Restrict Advertising on Street Furniture and City Buildings
Can’t remember the specifics about the different measures? October 2007 Urbanist newsletter from SPUR has great and gory details on the different measures that were up for vote. [PDF]
September 17, 2007
Intellectual bling
In comments on “Stuff,” SourGrapes wrote
TA with all that, but I’d include books too. What are ya keeping them for? In most cases it’s not to refer to. They’re intellectual bling. It’s very very unusual to have a couple thousand books, but that guy forgot to say “in our class of people”.
I keep books I want to look at again. And the rest go off to subsequent readers. Books are made to be read, not to be shelved.
Ouch, pal.
There’s something about books and not just as intellectual bling. I’m happiest in a nest full of books, all that unrealized and unread or waiting to be reread potential.
Yesterday I was rummaging through my stash of travel books, looking for old books on London for someone who’s working on the animation for (don’t spew) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, due out in 2009. (Jim Carrey will be voicing Ebenezer Scrooge/Ghost of Christmas Past/Ghost of Christmas Present/Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. I told you not to spew!)
Didn’t find any, but found some early 20thc. Baedekers covering London and GB, found some old books covering places we’d been walking in N Wales, got sidetracked by a book on Mount Athos. … All that roaming around and a very cozy afternoon reading wouldn’t have happened if I gave away my stash of books. (I am giving away some of the books, ones I know I’ll never need/read/want to see again. But …)
I just love the potential of masses of books, love libraries. I was absolutely blissed out this trip by the Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin.
I was || this close to settling in to help them keep track of the 200K books they have stashed away there. (And Good Lord, they should join the 21st century and start scanning that collection. If that room goes up in flames, a world of knowledge will be lost. Maybe Bill Gates would subsidize the project. I’d volunteer. …)
What a place.
Heaven.
August 3, 2007
Shifty book notes from Thursday
(1) Who wrote
- Elizabeth & her German Garden
- The Caravaners
- Christopher and Columbus
I had to know — see? — because I’m sorting books by author and these 19thc. anonymous books were driving me nuts. Who was the author? Were they fiction or memoir?
Answer: Marie Annette Beauchamp, cousin to writer Katherine Mansfield (nee Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp). Fiction.
(2) Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Paul and Virginia. Ltd ed. 800c. 450 GB 350 USA. London. Routledge. 1888. #639.
cracking hinges. foldup box in good shape. worth?
(3) Vicar of Wakefield – Goldsmith. Rackham illustrations. Philadelphia. McKay. Printed in GB by Riverside Press. in box w/ illustration on cover. worth?
(4) War&Peace. Heritage Press. Limited Editions Club. 1938. 2 v. boxed. worth?
(5) signed prints. flowers (3) birds (2) . G. Juniga. (Zuniga?)
Oh, yes. I have a swell and marvelous time sorting books. And again. Tomorrow!
July 27, 2007
Book shifting
Book shifting. So here’s the problem. The bookcases are, for the most part, filled with the books I intend to stay where they are.
That leaves hundreds of boxes of books to go through on my quest to let go (“Finally!” sez his nibs) of some of the books. You can’t see into boxes without opening them. All the boxes of books on a given subject aren’t necessarily together.
We already have twenty boxes of books or so packed up for the Coast Community Library. The older younger one will come by with his partner maybe the first weekend in August to see if any of the books in the additional nine boxes of SFF titles intended for CCL are ones they want. Let’s call it thirty boxes of books boxed up and ready to shift out. … and more than ten times that many still here, most unsorted.
I have four main areas where books in boxes (and loose now, due to the sorting) are stashed. I have too many boxes whose contents aren’t easily identifiable because I didn’t, back when we were packing the boxes up, always remember to label the boxes (as I do now) so that the contents labels are visible from all sides.
I have other boxes that might be labeled but are hidden by other boxes so I can’t determine the content. In all I have over thirty boxes that are “unknown.” I have another twenty or so that are labeled “nonfic” which need to be sorted through. I have eight that are labeled “misc” which need to be sorted through. I need to get to the “unknown” boxes and see what they might be. And I have the added twist that, due to the vagaries of the move, what is in the boxes is not necessarily as is labeled, if the box is even labeled.
Yesterday I decided that I had to get a grip on what we had, where. I spent some time counting boxes in the four areas and today I created an Excel spreadsheet (and I am so not a believer in spreadsheets) so I can get a handle on which boxes are where and what I can do to shift books around, always remembering that I don’t want to end up with too many books in any one place because even though the space was built with a live load req of 40 lbs/sq foot average, you just don’t want to push it and, like J Carter Brown, I think it was, have your walls started spreading out because of the load of books on the upper floors.
The purpose of this first pass is to get the nonfic and misc and whatever books rough-sorted into categories so that I can then take each category and sort it more definitively and then take those sub-sorts and figure out what stays, what goes.
So … my box count yesterday. After feeding the data into Excel I find I have over seventy “subject” sorts of labels for the boxes, and that’s even with me throwing physics and biology into a greater superset of science when I was making the book count.
Seventy subjects is about fifty too many. I’m having a problem though with sorting some titles. Are they “essay” or “memoir”? When does “memoir” segue into “autobiography”? Would “Letters” be autobiography or memoir or essay? How about if they’re Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son? When do memoirs belong in history?
So I sort and sort and resort. My “reference” boxes had contained all sorts of things. My “facts” boxes had started out as trivia/factoid Uncle John’s and Cecil Adams sorts of books but had wound up also including flags of the world and Amos, Amas, Amat. And around and around and around.
The gross decision is that Area 1 will contain fiction, which still needs sorting. Fiction is all that fiction stuff that isn’t SFF or MYS. Area 2 will contain history & biography & autobiography & memoirs? essays? Area 3 will have SCI-related for now and JUV. Area 4 (the largest area and where I’ve been sorting) will get liberal arts (except history and biography) and all the stuff that needs sorting.
My kludgey spreadsheet tells me how many of what are where so I can wrap my head around how many non-fiction things are in the fiction area (24 boxes! that’s not bad) and how many fiction things are elsewhere (2 … okay).
The sheet also tells me that I have about 400 boxes of books, which (take out the thirty destined for CCL or the older younger one) means (hurray!) over half of the books moved in are either on shelves or headed out the door soon.
When I was making my notes, I didn’t note how many of those 400+ boxes have already been through the primary sort, but there have been loads. Heck, I probably missed some boxes anyway, but close enough is close enough.
A light’s glimmering at the end of the tunnel.
One thing, no, two things, I found day before yesterday were two identical copies of Kipfer’s THE ORDER OF THINGS, an interesting book but don’t ask me why I have two copies. The table of contents may help me with some of the “How do I sort out the science-related books into subcategories that will make it easy for me to see what I have?” sorts of decisions.
Does Feynman go in “essays” or in “physics” or in just what?
How do I make sure when I’m sorting through for dups that I have all the Feynmans in one place?
Odd, isn’t it, that I haven’t been buying many books at used bookstores or thrift shops lately?