One of my self-imposed tasks that I do when I'm putting in some volunteer hours at the Hatfield Public Library is to create book displays in the non-fiction room. I do this because I enjoy it, it keeps the room looking fresh as opposed to stagnant, and most importantly because it gets people to check out books! The theme of one of my recent book displays is Travel Memoirs (Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is one). This week when I arrived at HPL and went downstairs to the non-fiction room I discovered that among the half-dozen travel memoirs was a book that clearly did not belong. Apparently when a patron took one of the books from the display (actually, it was Eat, Pray, Love), someone replaced it with just any old book that was nearby. I took the book out of the display and looked at it a bit closer only to discover that it was cataloged wrong. The book in question was about writer Robert Bloch, who is best known for Psycho. It was cataloged as 813 Robert, not 813 Bloch. I checked the circulation card and saw that it hadn't circulated since 1996. Hmm...I wonder why?
I asked Eliza, the library director, what I should do with the book since it was cataloged wrong. Maybe she would want to re-catalog it? So that people could actually find it? She looked it, asked me how long it had been since it last circulated. I told her 15 years ago, and even then only twice. "Let's just get rid of it." was her response. If HPL had more space it might make sense to re-catalog the book but since HPL is SO TINY it's sometimes simply not worth the bother of correcting the cataloging to keep a book on the shelves.
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