My library used to have a separate section of several hundred books that were divided into general short story anthologies and science fiction anthologies. On any given visit, I generally spent as much time browsing those books as I did browsing the shelves in the rest of the library put together - and now they are gone. When the library finally reopened in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey (months and months after the horrible flooding it suffered) that section was nowhere to be found. Barnes & Noble used to do something similar by grouping anthologies either at the end or the beginning of the appropriate genre sections of the store. This morning I noticed that either B&N doesn't stock many anthologies anymore or they "hide" them in the shelves somewhere among all the rest of the fiction and sci-fi titles.
I still haven't gotten completely used to my library's new floor plan because for some unfathomable reason someone decide to flip the locations of the fiction and nonfiction books. Fiction moved from the south side of the floor to the north side and nonfiction books made the opposite move - and right in the center of the floor, just where it's always been, is a large space dedicated to room for four or five librarians at a time to call home. That was disorienting enough, but I finally got used to turning right for fiction as I approached the librarians rather than left as I have been doing for more than a decade.
But when neither of the two librarians I asked to point me in the direction of the newly located anthology section had even an inkling of what I was talking about, I was dumbfounded. They didn't even try to answer the question; it was like they had never heard of a collection of stories from different authors in one volume. I was on my own, and since I had a few minutes to spare, I started to browse the shelves in search of the vanished books. Sure enough, I finally spotted one of them in the general fiction section filed alphabetically by last name of the volume's editor, but in almost ten minutes of searching that was the only one I spotted that was not a collection of stories from a single author.
It looks like the books are still there somewhere in the library and the bookstore, but that doesn't make me feel a whole lot better because if I don't already know about a collection, including the name of its editor, it is unlikely that I'm ever going to become aware of its existence. And because I find short story collections to be one of the best way to expose myself to new authors and genres, this really bothers me. I have two takeaways from all of this: bookstores don't try very hard anymore to sell new writers to customers, and libraries don't design floor plans with the best interest of their patrons in mind.
So there you have it; I'm done for now.
I hate when libraries change things around and move the books to new locations. I lost a favorite book once that way because I couldn't remember the author, only where it used to be on the shelves.
ReplyDeleteI hear you. I was back in the library today to pick up something I had on hold, so I decided to try to find short story collections again. I found one, a thin volume of Shirley Jackson stories, in 30 minutes. That's just wrong.
DeleteThat sounds really frustrating. I'd say try their online catalog- maybe you can do a virtual search by type, for anthologies? but I suppose they aren't even tagged or marked that way.
ReplyDeleteI found that they are categorized that way in the e-book and audiobook portion of the system's online catalog, but I get the feeling that this is hit and miss. But better than nothing, I suppose.
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