The Misreading of Call Numbers

Sorry for the not so appealing title for this post, but today while searching, I found my search on the shelf with some others where the cutter of the call number was read wrong.  The search had the call number PN1040 .A513 1997 and was shelved just after the PN1040 .A53 's.  It then clicked in my brain that a lot of patrons get confused on how to read the numbers of a call number.   Patrons’ confusion over reading call numbers is important because that is how we discover where they are miss-shelved.

Take for example the above call number, PN1040 .A513 1997 should be read where .A513 should be viewed as if you were reading a decimal.  In decimal reading, .513 is smaller than .53 and not larger.  Sometimes patrons don’t read it this way and see the .513 as 513 (five hundred thirteen), which is more than 53 (fifty-three) if you exclude the decimal point.  In addition, sometimes patrons think in the opposite direction when it comes to decimals as well where they stick a .513 before a .5.  Just because a decimal may have more numbers, does not mean it should go before a decimal with less numbers. 

Also sometimes, though rarer than the decimals, patrons read that PN1040 as being next to a PN104.  1040 is not one hundred forty, but one thousand forty as we would really read a 4 digit whole number this way without a decimal.  To continue on with numbers with decimals after the letters corresponding to the subject, 1040.56 is obviously more than 1040.5 (add a zero to the 5 and it becomes .50 which is less than .56 since zero is smaller than 6), but patrons also forget about that as well.

Therefore, we can use how patrons understand decimals and the other numbers in the LC call number system to our aid when searching for books by thinking the way they are misreading the numbers.

Hopefully in this explanation I have not confused you all and my attempt has not been in vain.

Happy Searching! J

Books Hiding Other Books

A good tip and a cardinal rule really is to always remember is to look behind the shelf of books of which you are searching even if that shelf is not where the book ought to be but could be. 

Well for a couple of weeks, I have been breaking this rule and ignoring my own tip when one of my student assistants found one of our missings hiding behind some other books on a shelf several shelves below where it ought to have been.  It didn’t look like it had fallen between the shelves (our shelves are metal with a nice sized gap formed with the sections from the next row.  Instead, after the book had already been miss-shelved, another shelver (whether it was patron or employee is unclear) had crammed several books in front of our poor missing book to the back and thus concealing it from view.

In case anyone was wondering what missing book it was, Practical Research Planning and Design Q180.55.M4 L43 2013, a nasty section on its own because of the decimal (there happens to be several books bearing 180.5) and because there are several “M” cutters that tend to confuse the eye.

So an important lesson and Cardinal Rule #1: Always check behind the books on the shelf of which you are learning.

Happy Searching! J

The Miss-shelving Book Hider

Recently, while searching, I have encountered on several occasions books from 2 or 3 rows over crammed at the end of a shelf of books.  Also, on a shelf where the book end was slipping and some of the books leaning over, someone decided to cram a book (again 2 rows off where it should have been) in the little gap between the remaining upright books and the leaning ones. 

I’m unsure of who is doing this other than it is good practice for everyone who searches for missing items to occasionally look at the end of every shelf on every row as well as browse the books you pass by as you walk down the row.  Recently, I have found several miss-shelved items this way and on the rare occasion one that I had been looking for several months.  The most recent subjects this seems to be a reoccurring theme are all the G-GV’s, N’s, PN’s, PR , and PS.

Keep your eyes peeled and look out for books on the end of the shelves as well as the random miss-shelved ones in the middle of the shelf.

Happy Searching! J

The "ff" at the beginning…

This weekend as I was searching for another book on the 9^th floor, I searched in the oversized collection (anything above 28 inches in dimension for our library) for that floor's call number range.  I found something rather odd, a ffN shelved at the very end for the collection, which is A, B, and C’s.

So I got to thinking about why there was an oversized N on the 9^th floor with the A,B,C’s and the only think I could think of was someone got confused by the ff at the beginning of the call number, or maybe they thought that all ff’s were shelved together.

Certainly a first for me!  Usually when ff’s go missing they are usually shelved as if they were a regular sized book (imagine all of the creative placements for attempting to put an oversized book on a teeny, tiny shelf!), or since people get confused with E’s and F’s too, they find themselves with the F’s as well as in the F’s ffs (say that 10 times fast!).

If you receive a request for an ff, not only should you look in the f’s (over-folio, the big, BIG stuff over 40 inches for our library) as well as the regular sized book as if the patron disregarded the ff, but also on every other floor in their ff section.  This may sound tedious, but you never know where ff books might pop up...or miss-shelved rather.

Happy Searching!

Thesis/Dissertation Search Tutorial

Frequently, I receive search requests from Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to look for theses/dissertations and usually they are really out of place.

Here is a guide on how to search for theses/dissertations:

In our library, they are cataloged under the AS call number range, more specifically as AS36 .N64 if it is a dissertation, AS36 .N65 if it is a thesis.  Underneath this call number, there will be the academic department in an abbreviated form (i.e. Hist for History, Educ. for Education, and so on), and then there will be a year (i.e. 12 for 2012) and then a dash and another number denoting the number order it issued especially if there are multiple theses/dissertations awarded for a particular year.  The completed call number might look like this: AS36 .N64 Music 06-05 (only vertically of course and on the spine of the book).  On the top of the spine, there should be the student’s last name, although this may vary on binding practices over the years as well as if they had to obtain another copy because it went missing or was lost/stolen.

Seems fairly easy to shelve right?  Well, wrong on you for thinking that because there is a multitude of ways that it could be miss-shelved.  See below for a list of common miss-shelving mistakes rating for the most-likely to the rarer:

      1.   Theses are shelved with the dissertations and vice versa.  As if the color isn’t a key indicator (theses are usually green and dissertations black), I guess the 5 can become a 4 in some folks’ minds.

      2.  Sometimes they are shelved at the beginning of the dissertations because folks are just confused on how to shelve them or patrons are trying to help out by reshelving them.

      3.  If it is an oversized one (they are all shelved together not in the ff’s), they will most likely be miss-shelved lying flat on the shelf.

      4.  The years and order number at the bottom of the call number confuses everyone. Today I found one that was at the beginning of the Music range rather than toward the end where it ought to have been.  Call number: AS36 .N64 Music 06-05 and a bunch of others were crammed at the beginning, which happens to be in the 1970s if I remember correctly.

      5.  Education theses/dissertations frequently find themselves shelved with the English and vice versa.  Why? Well…I have no idea, same with the P.E. and the Psychology and the Political Science ones; along with the HHP, Hist. and the H.Ec’s.  Maybe the same beginning letter messes with folks’ heads.

      6.   Of course they might be randomly shelved within the theses/dissertations (usually numerically correct with the year published), so if all else fails, shelf-read, or at least look for your missing thesis/dissertation by the last name.

Thus, ends the tutorial of searching for theses/dissertations.  I hope this helps in looking for them and I haven’t left anyone completely confused and lost.

Happy Hunting!

The Next Shelf Over

Frequently books are found on a shelf above, below, to the left, or the right of where it ought to be.  These books sometimes are shelved right by the cutter, but wrong by the number and the call number initial letter.

Such is the case for the books listed below:

PN2286 .B67 1986 shelved as PN2287 .B67 1986 right next to a PN2287 .B6

GT4965 .G35 2002 shelved as GT4935 .G35 2002 right next to a GT4935 .G53 (oddly enough).

Happy Searching!

E’s and Decimals

Another heavily used part of our collection is the E185s, otherwise known as African American history and boy are there a lot of them!  They range from 185-185.98 and beyond. 

Common miss-shelving errors in this section can be found in the E184s, or immigration history as well as a lot of decimal errors such as E185.615 can often be found with the E185.61, E185.86, or E185.68 for example.

Other less common errors are once again the cutter confusion and letter miss-reads within the cutters and rest of the call number.  One from last week that one of my students found, was E185.86 .C58214 1998 found shelved as E185.68 .B58214 1998. 

One time I found one with both a decimal miss-shelve as well as a letter mix up within the cutter as well so it was a combo doozy of a find!

A best search analysis since these can be found anywhere within this call number range, which in our library takes up about a row and a half, is shelf-reading.  I know it’s not everyone’s favorite, but it can be anywhere within this range.

Good luck and happy searching!

There is something about 4874

This weekend I got a search request for the call number PN4874 .T444 A3 1998B.  After about 30 min of searching in the 4784’s and the 4871’s sure that this item was miss-shelved as most of the others I’ve had to search for in this range.  Lo and behold! It was where it should have been.

I’m left to assume that perhaps either the patron didn’t know how to search our call number system or 4874 mesmerized the patron as it almost did me.  There are a few other spots like this in the stacks, but that is for another post.

Happy Searching!

R-RA-RAWR!

The common miss-shelvings of the R call number range is that they are either in another R section (i.e. R in an RA: a common occurrence), or the decimals are just ignored or folks don’t know their numbers like they should. 

Such is the case with the one I found this past weekend:
The search was for R727.4 .P375 2012 and it was found shelved as if it were R727.3 .P375 2012.
Sometimes I even find that a missing item is miss-shelved in the wrong letter and has a decimal miss-shelving error. 

Then again less often than not, folks have number placement problems within the R’s too (i.e. a RA448.5 in a RA484.5); however, I haven’t had much of an issue with this since they moved from the basement to the 9th floor.

Happy Searching!

Random Miss-shelving Woes

Today while I was searching, I found some crazy random miss-shelving errors.       

In our library the call number beginning with S (agricultural history and agricultural sciences) are shelved with the D’s and E’s (World and American history).  Today I found an S in with the E’s.   This further stresses my point of searching all of the different letters on a floor and not just within the beginning letter.  Examples: if  S, U, V, D, E are shelved on a floor and you are looking for a DB don’t just look for it in the wide range of Ds, look in the S’s, U’s, V’s, and E’s too.  Even though a DB would end up in an SB or even an E is a rare occurrence, it has been happening a lot lately.

Further stressing my point of looking in other letters if shelved together on a floor.  See the below picture for the craziness of miss-shelving: 

As you can see there are NA's and PN's mixed in with the LB's.  While the PN's are shelved on another floor (seems as if someone was using them and then just put them back on the shelve...but beginning letters aside, at least they are numerically in order).  NA's and LB's are shelved on the same floor, so it is very important to look in every letter category on a floor.

Happy searching! 

Cutter Scramble

Lately there have been a lot of miss-shelved items that are miss-shelved through their cutters.  I’m not sure what that’s all about, but here are some examples of the latest searches I’ve found this way:

Missing book: HN90.S6 O76 2007 was found shelved between HN90.P8 Z64 2008 and HN90.R3 A5.  The only thing I can think of is that whoever shelved it ignored the “S” and got their alphabet wrong with their O’s and P’s.  O comes after N, not P folks.  Or conversely someone could have decided S comes before R.  We will never know.

The other missing item: BX4827.B57 M48 2010 was found shelved between BX4827.B57 B86 1985 and BX4827 .B57 C36 1999.  Not sure where the logic falls under here other than maybe someone became confused with all the B’s floating around in this call number range, or it could be the dim lighting in this section combined with faded type on the label.  Either way, this book was a couple shelves away from its proper location.

Moral of the story is always check/shelf-read everything within the section because folks get confused with cutters.

Happy Searching!

1’s and 0’s; 2’s and 9’s

This weekend while searching for my newly submitted searches, I found some PN’s out of order once again!  This section of our library is becoming quite the little annoying pest of miss-shelving!

The first miss-shelve mishap was the call number PN6110.C4 U56 shelved as PN6010.C4 U56.  I’m not sure what it is with 1’s and 0’s, but when they are in a combination with each other, they can be rather bothersome if miss-shelved.  It’s always good and prudent to look for everything having to do with multiple 1’s and 0’s especially when they are together.  It’s as if the miss-shelve mistake was speaking binary!

The other ones I found, which I deem a bit unusual (and not even a proper search card request), were several PN1992’s shelved with PN1929’s.  I’m not sure what went wrong here other than a number switch or 1992 wanted to take a time warp trip back to 1929 perhaps in a book truck shaped TARDIS. (Ok, I admit I watched a lot of Dr. Who this weekend…)

Happy Searching!

The Marriage of Call Numbers

Well, maybe not exactly, but close enough.  What do I mean by the marriage of call numbers?  I mean the sheer fact that for some reason some call numbers end up with other call numbers about 95% of the time if they are miss-shelved.

A perfect example of two such call numbers, are ones that begin with PN/PQ.  For some reason one is always in the other.  Another is PR/PS…must be something with the P’s!! 

Case in point, it is always important to check the other letters on the floor as if they are supposed to be shelved in that letter section.

Example for today’s post: PQ2605.A3734 E813 1989 shelved as PN2605.A3734 E813 1989.

Hide and Seek

Every now and then books like to hide behind the shelves or sometimes in between them.  However, on rare occasion, they like to play hide and seek with you and what I mean by that is that they like to hide in other books.

Example: Book LB2331 .G7940 1997, a mere 97 page book, was found within 392 page LB2331 .G78 1999.

While this is rare and curious as to how books really end up in situations like these can be theorized by that someone shelved a larger book and being lazy about it didn’t allot for enough room to put it back properly when spacing out the books.   Of course there is always the possibility that this was intentionally done by a patron, but who knows? 

FYI the above examples were paper/soft bound and can happen anywhere (Plays especially come to mind here).

A Random Find

Today while I was searching for some other items, I spotted a few items miss-shelved between the PN3355 and the PN3453 sections. One of those was a long missing PN3448 .A3 G73 1991 shelved with the PN3355 and not even close to the A’s in the cutter. Now, I know I recently posted about a book in this section (see Number Scramble post from March 27^th), but really what is up with this section?! I’m starting to believe that there is something in the air in regards to books on fiction as well as books on the types of fiction!

I’m not sure how exactly this could have been miss-shelved other than a patron randomly placed it on the shelf after deciding s/he didn’t really need it after all. Lately, I have been making such discoveries and only after I’ve given up all hope of finding it by scrambling around letters and numbers and simply starting to peruse the shelves to see if I can spot it. Nine times out of ten, I find such items on the same row where books would be if shelved properly.

So, a lesson for me (especially when training new assistants) and a lesson for you the reader, is to scan the shelves on the row because you never know where you will find that missing book.

Happy Searching folks!

Where O' Where have the Popular Checkouts Gone?!

Recently there have been some interesting ways books have been shelved: this week is no different and perhaps not very surprising…especially with books that have been used a lot.

I’m not sure if it’s because folks are afraid to check things out so they read them in the library and stash them in interesting locations, or they pull books off the shelves, think they are going to check them out, change their minds and decide to help library staff by re-shelving books.

So here the two examples I’ve found today whilst looking in the stacks:

PS3554.I319 P57 2008 shelved as PS3559.I319 P57 2008 –I’m not sure how a 4 looks like a 9, but I guess it just goes to show that anything is possible. (could be of course that this particular book has had 44 checkouts and 4 times marked as used)

F394.G2 L37 1999 shelved as F592.G2 L37 1999 and checked out at least 22 times–The missing book was supposed to be shelved with the Texan history section but instead it was hanging out with the Missourian. At least the 9’s are correct right? F’s are always interesting to search for since the numbers are almost always mixed up, you will most likely always end up virtually shelf-reading the whole F call number ranges to find them…or they could be with the oversized (labeled in our library as "f" and "ff").

Happy Searching folks!

Floor Jump Bonanza!

With all the book shifting going on in our library, books tend to get caught in the cross-hairs. As a result, it is important to check the floors where books used to be located, especially if the moves have separated some call number letters or worse yet, the book was already miss-shelved before the move.

The example for this post is the call number JF1525.O73 E97 2010 (proper and new location 6^th floor) shelved as JZ1525.O73 E97 2010 (on the old location, 5^th floor).

J’s can be tricky anyway and usually end up hanging out with other J+another letter's (I once found one with the K’s, but that is another post), but the point I’m trying to make here is always check on both floors of the letter split because somehow, some way, a book will eventually end up miss-shelved there.

Happy Searching!

Number Scramble!

Reading call numbers is a science-almost-art like quality that gets lost on many readers. Most folks tend to only read the beginning and the end of something, but miss the middle entirely. However, the middle often contains the most important bit of information. Such is the case with call numbers.

For some reason the beginning number after the letter(s) tend to get read this way. Here are some examples of books I have found located under this logic. First will be the call number I was looking for matched with the call number where I found it. In most cases these call numbers are located a couple sections a part, but others there was quite a bit of distance between the two.

E446 .H27 2007 shelved as E444 .H27 2007

HD57.7 .B373 2006 shelved as HD58.7 .B373 2006 (for some reason this happens all the time for these books)

HX239 .B47 2006 shelved as HX236 .B47 2006

PN3435 .L4 shelved as PN3355 .L4

PS3563.O8749 L68 2003 shelved as PS3553.O8749 L68 2003 (this happens ALL the time for all PS’s)

Of course, it would always be a good idea to look for these sort of mix-ups in other letter ranges as well such as that PS one, look for it in the same way in the PR section because it does happen (though coincidentally, I don’t have a current example…see a future posting).

So, case in point, try to mix up the numbers in between because sadly, those are the numbers that will get scrambled or worse another number will get substituted.

Happy Searching!

PT Number Switch-a-Roo

Ok, so recently there have been a lot of searches in the PT call number range (Germanic literature). So, I thought I would do a post on where I have found them.

Besides the usual hiding places of the PR, PS, and once a PN (!), the numbers in this range frequently get mixed up, like so much that I can’t even discern the thought process of how items were shelved the way they were. The first was a PT2681 (fill the rest in if you’d like, but the beginning is what matters here) and I found it hanging out with the PT2421 books. The only thing I can think of is at least the first and the last number matches…who cares about the in-between? Or it could be like one of those word things you see every now and again about how the brain only cares about the first and last letter (or in this case number) and makes you think the stuff in the middle is right. Either way, this one baffles me and is about a crazy as the books you find randomly on the shelf where it doesn’t even remotely belong.

Then of course I found the book with the call number PT2664 hanging out with the PT2624 books. This happens more often than you think and in many different ways. For example (and this happens more frequently in than in this case), the number 2664 could end up with in the 3664, 3564, 8664, 7564, etc. Usually the mix up happens before the last 2 numbers, but in this case it was the first 3.

How the mind tricks your eyes

Today, I received a search for a book with the call number PR9369.3.C58 Z65 2004, so I check the book’s statistics and saw it was recently checked in…weird right? I go upstairs going crazy looking for it in what I thought was the right call number range. However, what I thought was the right call number range, was really PR9639.3… So I continue looking and sure enough, the book was right where it was supposed to be shelved. At least I have the comfort of knowing that a fellow staff member and a few students couldn’t find it either probably because of the same mistake I made.

Case in point, your mind plays tricks on you especially when there are as many PR9639.3 as PR9369.3 books and if you are suffering from caffeine withdrawal as I was at the time.

Plays and Cutter Mishaps to Say the Least

Searching for plays is a love/hate relationship (well more of a hate relationship, but I love it when they are finally found within the 6 week search window). Unless they are bound together in a collected plays collection, many of them are very small and less than 100 pages. You know the ones I'm talking about, the ones printed by Samuel French in softbound paper covers, and easily bent, torn apart, and damaged. Needless to say, they give my search assistants and me a HUGE headache looking for them.

Today, one of my assistants found one that I had been looking for almost 6 weeks now!! Recent Tragic Events by Craig Wright with the call number PS3573 .R53240 R43 2004 was hanging out with the PS3573.I(insert rest of call number here). Apparently Rs look like Is now and I'm pretty sure everyone is wondering, "Why did you miss this?!" Well friends, it's because plays are illusive, probably because someone looked at it and then moved it, or I was probably driving myself crazy trying to find it in the first place and simply overlooked it (hey, we are all human right?) In this particular section there are several playwrights/authors with the last name of Wright to add to the madness.

So here are some tips I like to use while looking for plays (besides the obvious statement of they could be anywhere):

1. Look along the shelf, section, and sections next to the proper shelving location. It's always a good idea to look behind the books on the shelf too because they could have fallen back behind them (This is particularly true in the PS3600's). Plus, looking along the whole aisle/row wouldn't be a bad idea.

2. Mix up your numbers and cutters (the bits after the decimal). Examples of this are a PS3573 could be a PS3537 or PS3573.R53240 R43 2004 could be PS3573.R43 R53240 2004 (or in the case of this unfortunate play, the R was reinvented into an I.

3. Think dyslexically. Like this play, the R turned into an I. The same can be said of any other part of the call number. PS could be PR (happens all the time), PS3573 could be PS3273, PS3373, etc.

4. Look in places where you know there are going to be a lot of plays. Examples of famous playwrights are Tennessee Williams, Lanford Wilson, August Wilson, Don Nigro to name a few (our library has several if not most of all of these works). Alternatively, you can look to find a group of plays and look at those to see if any are where they shouldn't be (though I tend to do this as a last resort).

5. For our library the key play shelving mishaps are between the call numbers beginning with PS3525-PS3620 (or beyond, I can't remember when it ends though the PS 3600+ are a pain). Therefore, I look at every cutter part that begins with R in the case of Mr. Wright's missing play. (examples: Though Recent Tragic Events begins with a PS3573, I look at all of the other PS's at their R's- PS3539.R53240, PS3559.R53240, etc.).

6. Sometimes patrons are lazy and instead of putting books and plays they are finished looking at on the 'to-be-shelved' cart, they sometimes reshelve their materials at the end of a shelf...no where near where the proper shelving location is. I use this as a last-ditch attempt too if all else fails, but I always keep on the lookout for these items while I'm searching anyway.

7. Even though they take a while to search, keep your cool and don't get frustrated. If the patron needs the play that badly, there is always interlibrary loan.

Anyway, this post has become long-winded enough, so I hope this helps all who are trying to find the missing, illusive, and pesky little plays. If I think of anything else, I'll add it to the comments section.

The Illusive "Vergilius"

As I was searching the stacks for the 24/40 day overdue reports, I happened upon Volume 56 of the periodical, Vergilius (PA6825.A2 V47 V.56). This issue wandered and decided to hang out with some works by Ovid between the call numbers PA6525.M2D6 1979 and PA6537.A5 B6.

I'm guess it confused its 65...with 68...

Classic case of number confusion.