Friday, July 3, 2009

Brilliant Bookshops...

I was very impressed when I visited "Borders" recently.The huge array of brand new books shouted at me to "Buy buy buy".The sheer volume of identical copies adds to the visual feast and was very appealing.

I love the way books are categorised in various sections, eg "cookery", "travel", "sport", "historical", etc which makes life very easy for browsing patrons.I would love to see this method adopted in public libraries (perhaps in smaller childrens libraries?) but it would be a nighmare for us librarians to shelve or to identify particular books.

I was also very impressed with their 'online access' computer, searching with both titles and authors. Searching for a book published in 1956 it informed me that I just need to place an order and they will source it for me!

In spite of these advantages, our public libraries with their range of new and old books nestling together is food for my soul.

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