Dinette Set, The

Cidu Bill on Jul 1st 2009

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yellojkt: Except that books are either sorted by topic or author’s name.

Filed in Bill Bickel, Dinette Set, comic strips, comics, humor, libraries | 18 responses so far

18 Responses to “Dinette Set, The”

  1. Morris Keesan Jul 1st 2009 at 09:31 am 1

    a) the cartoonist has never been in a library

    b) I used to work in a bookstore where books were arranged by publisher, and within publisher alphabetically by title.

  2. Rainey Jul 1st 2009 at 09:53 am 2

    “A”, “an” and “the” are never used when alphabetizing books because they are too commonly used and only serve as reference and connection words. Otherwise, an alphabetical listing of books whose titles start with those would be thousands or millions of titles long.

  3. Kate C Jul 1st 2009 at 10:03 am 3

    Books are sorted by topic, but within the topic they are alphabetical.

  4. Morris Keesan Jul 1st 2009 at 10:16 am 4

    Within topic, books are sorted alphabetically by author’s last name, not by title, in any library I’ve ever been in.

  5. xman Jul 1st 2009 at 10:49 am 5

    Samuel Peyps sorted his books by size.

  6. Scott Jul 1st 2009 at 11:05 am 6

    Morris Keesan: b) I used to work in a bookstore where books were arranged by publisher, and within publisher alphabetically by title.

    I think I’ve seen that, perhaps in England, where all the Penguin books, for instance, were shelved together. I once shelved my books by publisher and publisher’s number, which was interesting in that you could see how cover art styles evolved, but troubling in that I couldn’t find anything.

    As for the comic, “Fale University” says it all. Why these maroons even came is beyond me, since I don’t see any food.

  7. Kate C Jul 1st 2009 at 11:46 am 7

    My elementary school library sorted them by title, I swear (I know this because I was a goody 2-shoes who was forced to “volunteer” in the library after school shelving books).

  8. me Jul 1st 2009 at 01:06 pm 8

    Perhaps they use e-books too much. Try as I might every computer I have used alphabetized files and folders that had “the” as the first words as starting with “the”

  9. Keera Jul 1st 2009 at 03:26 pm 9

    @Morris, the cartoonist has been in a library. It’s everybody else who hasn’t.

    @Me, there was the same complaint with the first iterations of iTunes. I therefore have “misnamed” albums like “Beatles, The”. Later versions ignore “The” during sorting.

  10. buzz Jul 1st 2009 at 03:31 pm 10

    In the fiction section, books are sub-divided by genre or format (viz. large print), then by author’s last name, then alphabetically under the author’s name.

  11. Charlene Jul 1st 2009 at 07:45 pm 11

    Do public libraries in the US not use the Dewey Decimal System for non-fiction? (I ask not to be sarcastic but for information: I know the Library of Congress system differs slightly.)

    In the Dewey system, fiction is ordered by the writer’s surname (or the editor’s surname or publisher’s name, in case of anthologies) and non-fiction numerically, with the first three letters of the writer’s or editor’s surname at the end of the number. In some libraries biographies or autobiographies are categorized under the 900s, while in others they’re separated out and classified under the subject’s name.

    The only place “the” comes into play is in the library “card” catalogue, but none of these people seem to be using one either online or otherwise.

    A bookstore is not a library.

  12. furrykef Jul 1st 2009 at 09:59 pm 12

    Yeah, my first thought was the card catalogue, but if you read the dialogue closely, it’s obvious they’re talking about the layout of the books on the shelves.

    Also, since this site tends to attract grammar nazis, I wonder when somebody is going to point out the phrase “there’s a lot” (instead of “there are a lot”). I’m a grammar nazi myself, but for some reason I don’t have that particular pet peeve, and in fact I often deliberately use “there’s” for both singular and plural. Maybe that’s just my inner iconoclast.

    BTW, I have to wonder if this comic’s artist is ever going to learn that cramming as much as you can into one panel is not a good idea. I always find it so hard to read…

    - Kef

  13. CIDU Bill Jul 1st 2009 at 10:14 pm 13

    “There’s a lot” and “there are a lot” can both be correct, depending on whether you’re stressing the singular word “lot,” or the items of which a lot exist.

  14. Zbicyclist Jul 1st 2009 at 11:06 pm 14

    Drastic overthinking on this thread. Note (1) the Dinette Set crew is always terminally clueless, (2) books that start with “The” really are all over the library, (3) the staff person says they “list” them by the second word; he doesn’t say they “shelve” them that way.

    Note that the two staff members are “Doe” and “Tick” — perhaps I just noticed that because my daughter’s being treated for Lyme disease (spread by deer ticks).

  15. Mark in Boston Jul 2nd 2009 at 04:22 pm 15

    http://www.theindexer.org/files/22-3/22-3_119.pdf

    The The Problem is a very real problem in indexing. Glenda Browne, the author of the linked article, is the foremost authority on The The Problem and is known informally as The The Woman.

    Books and other materials in foreign languages often end up in inconsistent places in libraries. You’ll find Stravinsky’s opera “The Rake’s Progress” under R but Wagner’s opera “Die Walkure” could turn up under D or W. Look under X for “Xcerpts from La Boheme”.

  16. Mitch4 Jul 2nd 2009 at 06:56 pm 16

    What a breath of good sense that Glenda Browne article provides!

    When I got to the References, though, I was slightly disappointed that none of the entries had multiple authors. I was curious whether her good sense would extend to keeping second (and later) authors’ names un-inverted. The only point to inverting the name is so the string you’re alphabetizing on will come first. (I suppose you could argue that the sorting might extend to the second name if a given author is cited multiple times with different co-authors. But if there’s that much going on, some sort of citation-key system is called for.)

  17. Mitch4 Jul 2nd 2009 at 06:59 pm 17

    P.S. You’ve gotta wonder what that Hall family did to get so many buildings on campus named for them.

  18. jjmcgaffey Jul 5th 2009 at 04:04 pm 18

    Charlene - yes, they (most US libraries) use Dewey Decimal for non-fiction. The Dewey for fiction is pretty well useless - it’s actually separated by country of origin of the author (US fiction is under 813, UK under 823 (I think, the numbers are something like that, and definitely 10 apart)). What the numbers after the decimal mean (genre? author’s name? code for something else?) I’ve never been able to figure out. I’ve been in libraries that actually used DDC for fiction and it was flat out impossible to find anything, so most ignore DDC for fiction and sort by genre and then by author’s surname.

    None of which (as you note) has anything to do with ‘the’, as books are (almost) never shelved by title. But the whole point of The Dinette Set is that they are incredibly stupid and hypocritical. Why I read it, I don’t know…

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