Neat Shelves

Just last week I blogged about how important it is for librarians to weed their collections, thereby ensuring that the shelves are full of attractive, generally newer books in good condition.

But there's more to having attractive library shelves than just having a current collection. It's also important these books be displayed in a pleasing manner.

For example - which of the two shelves below would you rather browse if you were a library patron?



The truth is, no patron wants to walk into a library and be forced to search though the sloppy, disorganized mess that embodies the first shelf. The second shelf, however, is much more pleasing. The books are all supported in an upright position and all books are pulled evenly to the front of the shelf. This makes it much easier for patrons to browse. And as we all know, the easier it is for patrons the browse, the more likely they are to find what they need and check out more books.

Now I just need to convince the rest of my staff of how important it is to keep the shelves neat...