(no subject)

[ellarien]

I just peeked into a certain newsgroup, which I still do at least briefly most days, and found a mention of bookstores shelving books alphabetically by title within a given author. Oddly enough, this is something that, until it came to my attention elsenet a couple of weeks ago, had never -- in a lifetime of spending as much time as possible in bookstores -- occurred to me as a conceivable way of doing things. I suppose it makes a twisted kind of sense for busy shelf-fillers, and if I manage to remember it while browsing it might occasionally save me a few seconds, but to me as a reader it makes about as much sense as shelving by publisher or spine color. (At home, I go alphabetical by author within broad categories, and mostly by publication date within authors. If I want the next book in a given series, I don't want to have to remember the title first, or scan the whole shelf checking inside for publication dates.)


Is there anyone out there who does the alpha-by-title thing at home?

Comments

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Hm. I organize by category first, then alpha by author, then by whatever seems best to me: by series, of course, if the author writes in series; by publication date, particularly if I have a tendency to read that author chronologically; and sometimes, yep, by title. It all depends, and I don't suppose anyone but me could actually go to my shelves and find anything easily -- even G. usually asks me where things are.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alpha by author, then title. This is because they voted us into a matriarchy and so have to live with the consequences; I didn't vote for the matriarchy and might well have lost if it had come right down to title vs. pub date without it.

[writerknv.livejournal.com]

I do! I'm completely anal about my books. But then, I used to work in a bookstore, too.