My librarian power

[owlectomy]

My library has the young adult fiction shelved on the back wall, not on freestanding shelves, so that when you face the back wall you can see the entire collection at once.

I know the collection very well, well enough that I can look at any shelf in the young adult section -- from too far away to read the titles -- and visually identify several of the titles and authors by their spines.

Thus, if you ask me for a certain YA book, and we actually have it in the library, there is an excellent chance I will be able to walk in a straight line -- with minor course corrections around the tables -- and pluck the correct book off the shelf without missing a beat.

I've actually managed to impress quite a few people with this.

Which I can only explain by saying that a lot of people around here don't have high expectations of their librarians.

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Mine is weirdly almost an opposite of that. I can walk into a mass of books, think of a topic, and if it's there I will find something usable. I used to do this in college, with libraries sprawled across whole different buildings. I'd just get a hunch to go into one, wander around, and find stuff. It's a gift of Hypatia. Works tolerably well in bookstores too, but better in libraries.