Goodness knows what the letters on the fiction book stand for

[depechemodefan]

Guy comes up to me:

Guy: I'm looking for some Dean Koontz books
Me: ok. do you remember if they were mystery?
Guy: yeah.

So we walk toward the mystery section. He starts to relate how he read the books at the library the night before, and he put them back in place but now he can't remember where. Anyway, as we walk, we pass under a big sign that says "Large Print and Fiction" and he points to the sign and says:
Guy: It's large print.

Now I don't know if he tying to say "Your in the wrong place, your in the large pritnt" or "It's a large print book." So I ask:

Me: Is it a large print book.
Guy: It's large print to me.
Me: But do you know if it's large print?

So we go to the large print section and he starts with "I don't see it."

I try to tell him that maybe they were n't large print but he swears they were.

So I leave him.

Finally he comes back and asks that I look in the catalog. I decide to take him to the regular fiction instead, and I'm trying to show him the letters on the spines of the books as I pass the M's and L's (the direction we were coming from started at the Z's) and I point out Koontz. He started to say how one copy was yellow, which happens to be the book I was pointing at.

I guess it might have been diff. if I checked the catalog first, since I thought we keept Koontz in the mystery section, but we still would have passed the "Large Print" sign, and he probably would have started with "it was large print."

Also, it's funny how last night he put them back in the right place, but the next day he doesn't remember where they were or where he put them back.

Also drives me nuts is they never follow the alphabet to find a book, esp. the fiction books, that go by the author's name. I bet he wandered around, not bothering to look at the labels, just hoping he see something familar as he passed all these shelves.

[Hyndis]

To somewhat defend the guy, if you're unfamiliar with a particular library it can be quite difficult to find things. Almost all libraries use the same filing system (there's a few oddball ones, or most likely merely too lazy/incompetent to properly file things), but the layout of each library is unique, so following the system can sometimes be a challenge.

[bloodrose]

I have been told repeatedly not to reshelve books myself and to leave them out for the librarians to do so that I wouldn't accidentally put them in the wrong spot.

[depechemodefan]

I have been told repeatedly not to reshelve books myself and to leave them out for the librarians to do so that I wouldn't accidentally put them in the wrong spot.

Even if we shelved it away, he still wouldn't have found it. I'm just surprised that he shelved it in the right place in the first place.

To somewhat defend the guy, if you're unfamiliar with a particular library it can be quite difficult to find things. Almost all libraries use the same filing system (there's a few oddball ones, or most likely merely too lazy/incompetent to properly file things), but the layout of each library is unique, so following the system can sometimes be a challenge.

He found the right place the night before to shelve them. It would have been another thing, like you said about libraries being different, if he couldn't find them in the first place and asked for help to look for them.

Besides, if he put them in the wrong place, I doubt any librarian or other shelver would have noticed, and placed it in the right place.