bombs in bottles
Let me preface this by saying: When I started working in libraries, I had to do inventory with a card catalog. This required me to pull out each drawer, carry it to the corresponding place in the stacks, and flip through each book and card by hand. It was heavy, slow, cuticle-shredding work and I do not miss it.
That said: There are right ways and wrong ways to do library inventory barcodes. And Reader, some of the people responsible for this collection before me did it the wrongest way possible.
The location of the barcode on the book doesn't matter terribly much day to day. It's not hard to flip a book over to run it under the barcode scanner.
The location of the barcode on the book matters VERY MUCH during inventory, however. Uniform barcode placement - ideally on either the fronts or backs alongside the spine, and always at the same distance from the top - allows one to scan very quickly. You just tip the book enough to reveal the barcode, beep, go on to the next book. An ideal collection could be scanned in less than 30 seconds per shelf.
Reader, this is NOT that collection.
The collection has several layers of barcode history. The oldest books had barcodes retro-fitted in the early 2000s. These barcodes are always inside the book, next to the card pocket.
Inside the book is the least convenient place for a barcode. These books have to be removed from the shelf and opened, one at a time, to scan the barcode, then closed and replaced on the shelf.
I'm willing to give the library staff of the early 2000s a pass on this one, however. We only have a handful of these books left, and most are non-circulating reference books. I inventory them more from a sense of completeness than because I genuinely need to do so.
What I find unforgivable is that, in 25ish years since, absolutely NOBODY has agreed on where to put the barcodes. Some people clearly did not even agree with THEMSELVES. Our barcode placement is utter chaos, and I hate it, and the only way to fix it would be to re-barcode and re-catalog each of over 3,000 books.
Barcode locations on library books, ranked:
Perfect. Ideal. Best possible accommodation for right-handed librarians to inventory an entire collection as quickly and accurately as possible.
Second-most perfect. Near-ideal. Best possible accommodation for left-handed librarians to inventory an entire collection as quickly and accurately as possible.
Good. Nearly as good as the top left corner, but requires tipping the book a bit further to reveal the entire bar code. Still, no complaints here.
Acceptable. Requires a little more effort to tip the book far enough to reveal the entire barcode, but not the worst choice.
D+. Requires either extra tipping or a further reach from the barcode scanner. The only reason this does not receive a failing grade is that it does not require the book to be removed from the shelf entirely.
No. Bad. Not only does this often require removing the entire book from the shelf, it also covers the ISBN.
I hate you.
When the librarians here in the early 2000s realized that interior bar codes were a poor choice, they started putting them on the front covers, near the bottom of the spine. If everyone else had followed their example, I would not complain.
BUT NO. There are bar codes in every conceivable location on these books. Including - incomprehensibly - in the DEAD CENTER of several covers. Why. WHY.
Some of these may result from library staff coming or going; people have their habits, after all. But some of them DEFINITELY DO NOT.
For example, someone in the past had a weird habit of placing bar codes on the front of paperbacks but on the back of hardcovers. Even when the books were purchased at the same time. Even when they're part of the same series. I have three separate series where the first volume (paperback) has a front barcode and the rest (hardcover) have back barcodes. Which are in sequential order, so I KNOW they were applied together!
But my favorite. The absolute piece de resistance of library inventory barcode fuckery:
We have an entire 12-volume series of books, in hardcover, numbered 1-12, purchased together AS A BOXED SET, with sequential barcode numbers, whose barcode locations alternate front-back. Odds are front, evens are back.
Absolutely nothing on the cover art necessitates this. Shelving the series alphabetically by title messes up the front-back pattern, but it does not result in any new pattern, such as all-front all-back. Alternating barcode locations was a DELIBERATE CHOICE.
Why. Who. How.
I swear to God: If I find you, I will fill your house with crickets.
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