Happy on the Shelf

None of the QKs are currently checked out.

The library that employs me, being an academic library (and not being a specialty library) uses the Library of Congress classification system. Y’all are familiar with it? The call “number” is alphanumeric, beginning with a letter for a general subject and often another letter for the sub-subject and sometimes (but not often) a third letter for sub-sub-sub-ject. Anyway, Q is science, and QK is botany. And none of our botany books are out. Not one of them. Zilch.

Not that we have a lot of botany books. Five hundred-odd. We don’t have a big botany program, and the sciences are more journal oriented now anyway, I’m told. Still: no botany books currently checked out. Or missing, for that matter. They are all there, just sitting on the shelves. In fact, the last time someone took out a botany book was in November. It came back, on time, not renewed, in December. 72 days and counting.

Of the thousand or so books in QL—zoology—two are currently checked out. One of those is checked out to the head of public services here; I’m figuring that since it’s an 1833 publication, it’s checked out to him for some sort of display or demonstration purpose. Or, I suppose, just because it’s cool, which would totally count. The other is Aristotle on the movement of animals. That’s checked out by an actual instructor. In the philosophy department. So that’s all right.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.