Shelving survey

[vettecat]

sdavido and I are having a difference of opinion, and I'm curious as to how other people feel about it...

Imagine, if you will, a series of related books. Let's use Garfield books as an example. I say they should be shelved with the first volume on the right (3, 2, 1), because the titles are oriented that way; if you tilt your head to read the titles, you will be reading from right-to-left on the shelf, with right being the "top" of the title. SD- says they should be shelved with the first volume on the left (1, 2, 3), because English reads left-to-right. But then when you read across the titles you're going in the wrong direction, which feels odd to me.

(Stacking them vertically, which is the easiest way around the problem, won't work in many cases because of the space available.)

What say you, fellow bibliophiles?

[Poll #1110996]

Edit: Assume I'm talking about English books here...

Comments

[arib.livejournal.com]

left to right for anything numbered, left to right if letter order in english, right to left in hebrew.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Assume I'm talking about English books here...

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

I was about to add a caveat to my response about English vs Hebrew.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Right-to-left really only works if you're looking at the books head-on. For spines, you'd want to go in ascending numerical order.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Head-on as in flat on the shelf, like in a bookstore? Interesting, for that I would do the opposite...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No, m'dear. :) As in "looking directly at the cover of the first book, with subsequent books behind it, so that when you finish reading Volume 1 you can immediately continue with Volume 2".

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes much more sense... I think it would get annoying though, especially once you got past the 3rd book in a series.

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

Okay, here's the thing.

I would shelve left to right, but I too always feel it looks weird for the spines to go the way they do. I blame the publishers! :)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Get books in French; the titles go the other way ;)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for understanding what I mean!

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

The reason spines go the way they do in this country is that when the book is lying flat, front cover up, the spine text is right-side-up.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

That does make sense. And may be why I started shelving books the way I have been, I often stack them vertically, and then if you move them to a different shelf and turn the stack horizontally the first book will be on the right.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

benveniste suggests shelving them alphabetically:

* Eight
* Five
* Four
* Nine
* One
* Seven
* Six
* Ten
* Three
* Two

He is a sick puppy.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Bop him with a pillow for me...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's kinda how they arranged the episodes on the American Gothic DVD set....