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From: jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: [Meta] Wait, you sort your books how???
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:44:02 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: Public Access Networks Corp.
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In article <v76rea$1f4dn$1@dont-email.me>,
Ahasuerus  <ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:
>On 7/16/2024 9:19 AM, BillGill wrote:
>> On 7/15/2024 12:25 PM, Ahasuerus wrote:
>>> On 7/15/2024 9:48 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>>> In article <v738di$n4rq$1@dont-email.me>,
>>>> Tony Nance  <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> More signs of madness in this crazy world:
>>>>>
>>>>> I just ran across the results of a poll that asked 29,000 Americans
>>>>> about their book-owning habits, and friends, I am shocked — shocked! —
>>>>> to report that there are people who have absolutely no organizational
>>>>> system whatsoever. Worse — worse, I tell you — there are some who sort
>>>>> their books by color. Color!
>>>>>
>>>>> Here’s a link to the main source (published in October):
>>>>>
>https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/47712-how-many-books-americans-own-and-how-they-organize-them
>>>>
>>>> I could read the link, I suppose, but I wonder how many people actually
>>>> have a sufficient number of books such that they need to be organized.
>>>
>>> As a general observation, the viability of various organizational 
>>> systems depends on the number of books to be organized. What works 
>>> reasonably well for a few hundred books -- e.g. sorting by the 
>>> author's last name -- may be problematic for a collection with a few 
>>> thousand books and completely unworkable for a collection that 
>>> contains tens of thousands of books.
>> Have you checked your local library lately?  They do have
>> thousands of books.  They use a system that separates the
>> books by class, first fiction and non-fiction.  Then
>> they separate the non-fiction according to the Dewey Decimal
>> Code.  The Fiction is separated into a number of sub
>> classifications, such as General Fiction, Mysteries,
>> Science Fiction, and of course Children's.  Then within
>> those categories they are sorted by the author's last
>> name.
>
>[snip]
>
>It's a viable system for certain types of use cases. Unfortunately, any 
>system that sorts books "by the author's last name" comes with inherent 
>limitations. Suppose you have N bookcases dedicated to authors whose 
>last name starts with an "H". Everything is fine as long as your library 
>is static or close to it. Then you discover that you absolutely love D. 
>K. Holmberg (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?200173) and/or Nathan 
>Hystad (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?249647) -- to pick two 
>random prolific authors -- and suddenly you have a problem.

I have several times discovered the easiest end of my shelves to
add more columns was on the far end away from where I wanted to 
add books. 
-- 
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