Is it Friday yet ?

[venta]

Oh look, it's Elizabeth trying to sneak enormous philosophical issues into a scratty little cut...

I'm currently reading Antonia Fraser's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. Which has so far been interesting, although it has consistently unsettled me with its strange word-order within sentences. Owing to my unsociable habit of reading while eating, it's also rather more splattered with miso soup than any book on Scottish history should rightfully be.

However, in talking about the behaviour of the Scottish nobility around the time Mary returned to Scotland, it says:

"there is a basic code of human decency, which should not be violated even in times of insecurity" (quote approximate, as I don't have the book with me).

Which struck me as rather a sweeping assumption to just drop into the middle of a pargraph. I'm not even sure I agree with it. I'm wondering if it's the hypothetical should of someone who knows it isn't them whose going to be suffering the insecurity...

Discuss :)

Today's slightly less in-depth question: why, when placing multi-volume books on shelves, do the volumes always seem to go right to left ? It seems an odd convention, in view of the left-to-right nature of our society. I'm hoping addedentry might know the answer to this one.

I'm tired. My neck hurts.

On the plus side, a colleague brought me a CD this morning of what he describes as "home-brew chilled dance/ambient with celtic crossovery things going on" which he made, as is traditional, in his bedroom.

I'm quite liking it so far.

Comments

Books going right to left

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I actually know the answer to this, having pondered it at length.

Take a pile of books. Orient them neatly such that the first volume is on the top.

Turn them ninety degrees so as to put them in a bookcase.

See?

Re: Books going right to left

[venta.livejournal.com]

But I'd put the first volume on the bottom.

So you've reduced the problem to a question already asked :)

Re: Books going right to left

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

That's interesting.

If asked to arrange books in a pile I'd put the first one on the top.

It may be that your book-pile-arranging is done with the underlying knowledge that turning them afterwards puts them in the 'wrong' order, while the rest of the world just follows the 'top-down' rule without having thought about what happens when they put them in the bookcase.

Re: Books going right to left

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

What "top down" rule?

Re: Books going right to left

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

We write left to right and top to bottom.

Re: Books going right to left

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see.

In that case, I'll point out that I very rarely sort books in a stack and then place the stack on the shelf - I find it easier to sort books on the shelf, and as such it makes sense to me to sort them "shelfwise" (i.e, left to right) rather than "stackwise" (i.e, top to bottom).

Re: Books going right to left

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

But I'd put the first volume on the bottom

Me too. I treat multi-volume books in exactly the same way that I treat series of books - the first one goes on the left.

Is this not the case in real libraries? I certainly don't remember ever seeing an encyclopedia arranged

[Winter - ZZ Top] [Televison - Wimbledon] [Marmoset - Teleology] [Etruscan - Heron] [Aardwolf - Eschaton]

Re: Books going right to left

[venta.livejournal.com]

No, doesn't seem to be true of alphabetical books like that. But often the numberically highest volume will be on the left, if the volumes are only labelled by number.

What kicked me off with this today was the boxed set of Narnia books in the staffroom - The Last Battle is the leftmost book in the box, and The Magician's Nephew the rightmost. This seems to be quite common in boxed sets of series(es).

(In fact, everything from herring...)

Re: Books going right to left

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

What kicked me off with this today was the boxed set of Narnia books in the staffroom - The Last Battle is the leftmost book in the box, and The Magician's Nephew the rightmost.

I did notice that... It was strongly tempting to put them 'the right way round'. It's the same sort of impulse as straightening hanging pictures, I think...

Re: Books going right to left

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

(In fact, everything from herring...)

Point scored and duly noted.

Re: Books going right to left

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I do put books on shelves so that the volumes go from left to right.

If I had to stack some books, I would indeed put the first volume on the bottom, specifically so that they would be in the 'correct' order when put on a shelf.

So I guess I've been doing it wrong all these years?

Re: Books going right to left

[triskellian]

Books on shelves in my house start at the first one on the left and move to the last one on the right (because I naturally expect to read left to right, and to start at the first one).

Books in stacks in my house start at the last one on the bottom and finish at the first one on the top (because then I can take the first one from the top of the pile and when I've finished it, be reasonably certain that the next one to read is the next in the pile).

I'm slightly disturbed to find that for each of those paragraphs I was visualising a particular series of books. The first is the Dragonrider books and the second is the Anne of Green Gables books. These are by no means the only series of books in my house, they are not my favourite series of books, and although I read AoGG recently, I've not read any Dragonrider books for years, and I haven't read the rest of AoGG for even longer. How peculiar.

Re: Books going right to left

[zandev.livejournal.com]

Yup, this is what I do as well. I order books such that they are left-to-right on a shelf and top-to-bottom in a stack. Yes, this does mean I have to reorder them when doing a stack to shelf transition.

Re: Books going right to left

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've had an alternative answer via email from a non-LJ person who read this.

The pointed out that as you look at a book on the shelf, it's actual contents goes right to left (ie first page on right, last page on left). So by putting Vol II to the left of Vol I, you have better coninuity of content... and indeed, if you were to rebind them as one vol, you'd want them that way round.

Since I believe it used to be moderately common to split large volumes up post-binding, this might be relevant.

Re: Books going right to left

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Uh oh... it's endian-ness !

Re: Books going right to left

[voratus.livejournal.com]

Ah, but using that line of thought would also require the books to be put on the shelf with the pages facing forward, and the spine to the back. The best consistency of pages you could want, except you'd not be able to identify the book.
So whereas that could create the order of the books, turning them around so you can see the spine would put the lowest/earliest volume on the left (where it was initially), and the latter to the right of it/them.

Re: Books going right to left

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Up to the mutter century it was quite common for libraries to keep their books chained to a rail for security. A consequence of the usual chaining arrangement was that the spines were at the back and the fore-edges faced forward on the shelves. Titles would be scribbled on the fore-edge for identification. You might not want to do this to your collection, though.