Taking Inventory

You probably thought that title was some pun, but it is not. I am actually going to talk about doing inventory.

Libraries, like retail stores, do inventory. When I first started at my current job, one of my first projects was doing inventory on the 400s. (400s is the language section for non librarians). And while it didn't push me intellectually or anything, it definitely helped me become familiar with my collection. I think this is the greatest benefit of inventory, besides making sure that the books are still there. (Although you'd be surprised how many books in the 400s were mysteriously missing. Almost all of them were "Intro to Spanish" books and were clearly stolen.)

So at the start of a new year, due to staffing changes in our department, we all got new collection areas. I kept my 400s and 800s and added the 000s, 100s, and 200s. A few weeks ago I started taking inventory of my new sections. They were all weeded recently, so I will likely not be weeding at all this year. (Well, maybe the 800s...but yikes. I can't even think about doing that yet.) So far I'm learning a lot about the collection: what sections are really robust, which ones are kind of thin, and which sections are highly used. And, quite literally, I'm getting a feel for the books. I get such pleasure out of handling the books and seeing them as individual creatures just waiting to be checked out. Each one is so full of information; it is kind of like a little mystery ready to be discovered. Now, this isn't some elegy for the printed book. But there is something pretty magical about seeing so many books, so much human thought contained in one little area, and realizing that these things are all here, for us, to explore as we will. That kind of spontaneous browsing is important to our creativity and curious minds.

There is also value, I think, in looking at each collection because you see how clearly there are little pockets of interest. Here's the Wiccan stuff, here's the books on speaking to ghosts, here is the large and ambitious section about happiness. I can't help but wondering about who checked out the missing books. Is the person with one of the Sylvia Browne books trying to tell her old dog how much she loved him? Did someone take out the book on anger management in a fit or was it for someone that hurt them? Did the person taking out the old Hegel know what they were getting into?

Inventory gives me time to actually meet the collection, to interact with it more slowly and deeply than I normally do. I'm grateful for this chance to immerse myself in the quieter side of public librarianship. Plus books, even the old ones, smell a lot better than most patrons.