fun@library
went by toa payoh library this afternoon and was searching for 'a short history of ukrainian tractors' under SHO. even though it should be under LEW for author, was thinking, hey, u never know. while the ukrainian tractors were sadly elusive, i did find A S Byatt's A Whistling Woman mysteriously labelled SHI. decided to do the civic duty thing. after all,
a book mis-shelved is a book lost. hailed a jc student volunteer who
seemed shocked out of her wits to be approached. she was also unable to grasp the concept of 'mis-labelled.' 'just put it in one of those collection boxes to be shelved.' finally took the book to the enquiries counter on the ground floor. incredibly enough, the concept of 'mis-labelling' also appeared to elude the woman there. 'sometimes books are not labelled by authors' names,' was her first line of defence. 'huh, how are they labelled then?' she then called up the book's entry on the computer system and triumphantly announced that the author was leonora shields. except that it clearly wasn't. unless A S Byatt in large font on the front of a book was some fancy new typographic design. by this point, decided that what constituted 'authorship' was too
convoluted to go into and that i should leave the nlb to its own devices.