Library Idea of the Week
Cathy Belben, Librarian, Burlington-Edison High School

Last week, my FABULOUS assistant, Blythe, started enacting a dream of mine:  to re-label all of our fiction books with more detailed spine label. Operating under the belief that more information is (often but not always) a good thing, we’re changing all of our labels to mimic the system used at Bellingham Public Library. Our fiction labels no longer read

F
BEL

They will now read

FICTION
BELBEN
Cathy

When this switch was made at the Bellingham Public Library when I worked there as a page, it made shelving easier, faster, and more accurate. I’m hoping it will have the same effect here. I also think it will help patrons find books more easily. Has anyone else tried this? How does it work?

Book of the Week
A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker is a great beginning-of-the-year read for folks who are busy reorganizing their lives after a hectic holiday season. Baker’s story chronicles the simple daily routines and reflections of forty-four-year old Emmett, who rises each day to build a fire and think about life.  His musings are surprisingly fascinating and make for a thoughtful, intriguing read.

Baker covered similar territory in The Mezzanine, wherein a man’s trip to the drugstore for shoelaces results in his detailed meditations about the minutiae of everyday life, A Box of Matches is homier and sweeter and its narrator less obsessed with the science of figuring things out and more intrigued and delighted by the way the simple things in the world work.

If you liked Tepper Isn’t Going Out by Calvin Trillin, I think you’ll appreciate this unusual novel.