Delight in Disorder (2)

Problematical objects on a reference desk can be either too many, too much alike, or too old. The first monopolizes space, the second complicates locating, and the last are irrelevant (however much they might please the archaeologist). Categories can overlap.

That they remain ensconced is a result of them blending in with the deskscape. By degrees their presence becomes a tradition. Eventually by accident or design some are found out and removed.

Delight in Disorder (1)

The title of the Robert Herrick poem is anathema to the librarian mindset. However, disorder reifies atop many a librarian's desk.

The problem enlarges when several library personnel share a public reference desk. Oddly, the smaller it is,the better, for there is less space to grow the things that contribute to the disorder. Where there is no vacancy, there is no encouragement to fill it.

The Disorderly Librarian

Like the shoemaker and his children, are librarians, those paragons of order, neglectful of this virtue when out of the public eye? Consider the tops of their desks in their private offices. Are they without clutter, with stacked archipelagos of papers neatly alphabetized or chronologized and symmetrically arranged? Or are they magnets for congeries of chaos, papers and other material higgledy-piggledy--ads, unchecked-out books from the collection, memos that have outlived their usefulness, doodled notes, book orders of indeterminate age, freebies from conferences, bookmarks, various containers, 3-ring notebooks, unwrapped cd's and dvd's, office gear, personal keepsakes, eating amenities and the crumbly aftermath of hasty meals, what is that doing there's, and so that's where that's been's?