nerdy librarian argument: Where to put Harry!

[orangerful]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (the rehearsal script) will be published on July 31st and cataloging librarians are having fun debating where this book should live (when it eventually gets to a shelf...which might take awhile).

So, gentle readers - what do you think?

The librarian in me is annoyed that it not a prose novel but a script, and feels like it should go into the 800s with the rest of the plays.

Children's Librarian/Youth Librarian in me thinks it would make the browsers life easier if it were on the shelf as a normal book, possibly even fudging the author call number so it lives next to the rest of the series.

The Harry Potter fan in me (which isn't a huge one, my HP fandom is low-key but still) is annoyed that this is not actually written by JK (yeah yeah she "approved" it), is a play, it not really meant for children and is full of emo-Harry and Son and could possibly ruin the entire series and wants to ignore it and therefore wants to hide it in the 800s so no one finds it after the shine wears off in a year.

What do you all think? And I want both sides - I know some of you work in libraries and some of you are normal humans (LOL! NO TRUE YOU ARE MY FRIENDS SO YOU CAN'T BE NORMAL!) but what are your thoughts????????? Where should Harry and his cursed child live?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

Do you have some special display for new books? That would solve the "easy to find" issue for the next couple of months, and then you could put it in the 800s where it sounds like it belongs.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yes, after the holds are gone we would display it (currently not too many holds, 170 and we ordered 160) so I don't think interest is quite as high as people think. I almost feel like we should wait for the reviews to roll in before we attach a call number to it LOL

[jerusha]

Okay, so I think I'd be a stickler and put it in the play section for just the reason that you list.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

It sounds to me like something that should be in a different section from the books.

[verdande-mi.livejournal.com]

With the plays I guess. I don't really know anything about this play beyond it being a thing, but I guess I would probably say with the books if JK had written in.

[the_rck]

Hm. I'm not up on such decisions for public libraries. When I was working, it was in a university library that used LC for everything except literature. All literature got Dewey call numbers.

Well, I worked at a tiny public library in high school. I think they would have gone for two copies and shelved one in children's fiction and one in the adult section as an 800.

Of course, they'd be really wary about it because it's the sort of book that's apt to go out and never come back. When I worked there, we had a massive waitlist for everything V.C. Andrews ever did, but each copy we got went out once and never came back no matter how many phone calls we made, so the board made it policy that we would never buy copies, just accept donated ones.

We tended to skimp on the work of adding new copies to the collection, too. We were supposed to cover all paperbacks in contact paper, but we didn't see the point for those. Property stamp, date due pocket, and a call number, that was it. This was pre-computer, so we didn't have to jump through any hoops that way.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOL oh V.C. Andrews. I just weeded a few of those the other day for condition, still very popular but apparently people get so excited their spit their water (god I hope it was water) all over the pages so I had to toss it.

We had a similar issue with GED study guides and for awhile our materials department didn't buy very many. But it's not really fair to punish the good people for the act of a few bad apples.

I think my head would explode if they tried to shelve it in two sections. I don't roll that way - one or the other LOL.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I thought she co-wrote the play as well?

Anyway, I'm not entirely certain myself. With bookstores they either have public displays for newer releases and then have all the books of a franchise together in one place (or have some there but also in the area with other screenplays as well, esp since there will be the screenplay for the Fantastic Beasts movie coming out soon, it might have its own little section), but I'm not really sure if libraries organize things similarly in that way.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel like the idea that she basically just sat there and nodded was an early misconception - like how everyone thought it was about Teddy Lupin at first. I feel like she planned the story, at the very least. (Which is still different from casually greenlighting.)

I've also heard it's a way better play than it sounds via the spoilers...

[tigtogiba34.livejournal.com]

Prolly too much time in price changes at my grocery store but put in in plays and put a small sign in the Harry section that states it is in the plays?

[kaitydid33087.livejournal.com]

I think I would put it with the plays, since it is a play.

[ofwinterspast.livejournal.com]

I really feel it should go with the plays. I am not opposed to the play really...it just seems more orderly.

[girlwhowaited.livejournal.com]

I figure since it's not written by J.K herself - in the plays!

[touchofgr3y.livejournal.com]

Hahahahah I was so thinking about this earlier!

Here's what's *going* to happen: the OCLC record will have it in the 800s, which is where the staff doing copy cataloging will put it. It'll sit there for three seconds until one of the librarians comes and whines at me to reclassify it to live with the other Harry Potters. I just don't have the strength to argue about these reclassifications anymore, I'm getting awful. "Just write down what you want and give it to someone else to deal with! I don't have time for this!"

Bahahaha and this is how tired I am, the Dewey made completely sense to me and made me liar (to be fair, I spent lots of years in a Dewey library). SO FINE PN -> PR.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOL yeah, there was a HUGE email trail in my inbox today with Maryland catalogers having this discussion. I'm not a cataloger so I couldn't chime in but I wanted to because I ALWAYS HAVE OPINIONS ON CATALOGING LOL.

I an probably that whiny staff member you so dread...I honestly argue with our head cataloger all the time about things like this. But I won't about Harry because I am not volunteering to relabel 150 books if I could convince her to change her mind.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Wellllll, we have a nonfiction section within the YA, so for us it would probably be YA 800-ish. Probably... Actually, I'm not sure where they're putting it. Although did you guys get a scary email warning NOT TO OPEN THE BOXES until 7/31 exactly, regardless of when they get shipped? Because we did. I'm on the other side of the Midnight Book Release party and it's AWESOME. (Not that we're doing a midnight book release party but still.)

Actually, hang on--lemme see where we are shelving it.

*later*

Never mind--it's not searchable yet. We aren't even adding it to the catalog until 7/31 apparently. I'll let you know where it lands when I find out.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

If that email exists, it went to the people in charge of the books, not me. But I'm sure they did. I know when we got the boxes of 'Deathly Hallows' they were marked all over with "DO NOT OPEN OR YOU WILL DIE" notes from Scholastic (and by "die" they meant sued into oblivion). I'm sure it is the same for the new one - though our head of the department said our shipment had not arrived yet but assured us it would be rushed in processing.

I honestly don't think it is on most of the kids radars. 170 is a joke compared to when DH came out - I think we had over 500 holds before launch day, if I remember correctly. So it is mostly adults or hardcore potterheads, which is where it belongs...and which is why I am inclined to hide it in the 800s as more of an oddity for those who do their research in than future rather than canon book 8.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

I think that it would go with the plays.

[night-owl-9.livejournal.com]

The plays, I believe.

[place-to-hide.livejournal.com]

I don't know what I think of it. I did put my name on hold for it. Just to see if I like it or something.

[erychan86.livejournal.com]

Wow... That's though...

So from the point of you of someone that goes to the library just for one book (which is not me) and is interest in that book/series only I think it should stay with the other Harry Potter's book...

As me (a person that needs orders in her life in order to function as a normal human) it should stay where it belongs... With the other scripts... I would go find it there...

But maybe there are people who likes Harry Potter but don't have all the Infos about the book (they don't know what it is about and what it is) and they would go looking for it where the other HP books are... Maybe you should put a note saying where to find it just next to the other HP books...

[denorios.livejournal.com]

Ha, yes, dilemma! My response would probably depend on what kind of library the copy(copies) were intended for. For instance, my library is an academic university library, so we'd put it in the 800s with the plays. If I were cataloguing for a public library, I might hedge more along the lines of 'who is likely to want this and where is the best place for it', in which case I'd shelve it with the other Harry Potter books.

Or I'd compromise and put most of them with the Harry Potter books in the fiction section and one or two in the 800s.

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I'm also annoyed that it's a play not a book.

I think it should go in the play section.

[garnigal.livejournal.com]

It'll be shelved alphabetically by author at my house, but in my librarything tags it will be tagged as Harry Potter.

But my shelves are significantly smaller than a library :)

[interchanges.livejournal.com]

As someone who likes things to consistently be in order, I'd put it in with the plays.

As someone who works at a library and is constantly having to help people find something, I agree with my county's decision to catalog it with the rest of the Harry Potter books. (Though I am still annoyed that HP6 & 7 are in Teen while the rest of the books are in Children; put them altogether! I don't get it)

[angrboda]

It is a play. Therefore it sits with other plays. Putting it with the novels would be like taking all the films as well and putting them on the shelf next to the novels. It's the same universe but a different format. The format decides where it lives.

[luna-shovegood.livejournal.com]

Well, it probably should go with the plays - being a play. But unless your library has an electronic computer telling visitors where to locate books, you'll probably be hounded by sods such as myself who would immediately look in the Harry Potter section and then promptly be perplexed about following actual library systems.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

How often are exceptions made? Seems like the rules shouldn't be broken, and it should be put with the plays.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...is there a display as you walk in? For the first week I'd put it there.

*HUGS*

[1-rhiannon-1.livejournal.com]

Oh boy... That's a tough one. I'd probably put it with the rest of the HP books if at all possible, just to make things easier.