Saturday, November 11, 2006

Lying in wait at the Birmingham Mall.

So I was thinking this morning about the AV catalogers I know, and the catalogers I know who are supposed to be general and do AV but don't.
And then I was thinking about how libraries are always all riled up about being more like those bookstores who totally modeled themselves after libraries in the first place.
So now I wonder: When are we going to start modeling our music and movie collections like they do at those stores? (And, yes, I'm fully aware that everyone thinks the music store is dead. Bear with me, and just think about the music sections of Walmart or Target or whatever, ok?)
My library organizes most DVDs into "general" and "feature". As far as I can tell, none of my coworkers know what the distinction is. We all have guesses though. Wouldn't it be easier on the patrons to do like Blockbuster and organize by genre, or do like the stores and just do straight alphabetical? The other library I use doesn't have an anime or a TV programs section. If you want to check out, say, the 6th season of Gilmore Girls (guess what I'm at the library for...), you have to figure out whether some cataloger thought the show was more drama or comedy. Needless to say, most anime winds up in sci-fi. Wouldn't it be easier on the anime fans to throw that stuff all together?
If we can get things like the newest Harry Potter before its street date so that libraries have copies available for check out (or, as is more likely, on the hold shelf) the same day people can buy it, shouldn't we be able to do the same with new DVDs and CDs?

No comments: