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Why I Love Libraries

  • I don’t like buying books because I don’t like clutter.  We have two bookcases and they are full despite my best efforts and not buying.  When I do need to buy a book I get it either on audio or in e-book format so it doesn’t take up space.
  • I’m cheap.  I read 120-130 books in an average year.  I can’t afford to buy all those.
  • I like strolling through the stacks and accidentally finding a good book.
  • I can sit with my Goodreads TBR list open in one tab and my library website open in another and order up some books.  If I’m browsing I go to the big main library downtown but I get books delivered to a branch that I drive past on my way to work to make it easy to pick them up.
  • Bookstores drive me crazy because they aren’t organized like libraries and I can’t find anything.  Dewey decimal system forever!

Things That I Don’t Like About My Library

  • I’ve complained before about their insane organization system during my Library Scavenger Hunt post.
  • Another thing that bothers me about my library is that they have an African-American Fiction section.
    • No other races are segregated in their own section.  Asian authors and Native American authors are in the general fiction section.
    • They call it African-American on the shelves but they keep Zadie Smith’s books here and she’s British.  There are also some African authors here.  That just bothers me because they aren’t American and libraries shouldn’t lie.  The website and stickers on the books just say, “Black”.
    • Black authors who write specific genres may be housed in their genre.  N.K. Jemisin is in Sci-Fi/Fantasy.  Poor Octavia Butler is split between Sci-Fi and African-American depending on the book.
    • I think that people may miss out on finding these authors since they are in their own section and not with the rest of the books.
    • It is a good thing that Jemisin is in Sci-Fi.  She hates African-American sections.

Why do you love libraries?  What would you change? Does shelving by race of the author make sense?

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