Library Cataloguing Data
Nov. 8th, 2011 09:20 pmI keep a book diary - a physical, dead-tree diary (more explanation here); when I reach the end of a volume, I index it (entries in which I do that here)). The most recent notebook had more pages than most, I think; certainly it's taken me two and a half years to fill it. And the books I've read in that time are ( extremely numerous: ) I was surprised at how long the list is, and then I did a quick count and was surprised all over again that this isn't because they're all comics (or children's books, or any other sort of quick reads): some of them are, but some of them are solid volumes which seemed to last forever while I ws reading them.
And another kind of Library Cataloguing Data: the book I have just finished reading includes in its cataloguing data the following subject categories: "1,. War Widows - Fiction... 4. Haunted Hospitals _ Fiction . 5. Horror tales." Does this imply that there's an actual category of haunted hospital fiction (and, even more alarming thought, a category of haunted hospital non-fiction)? It overlooks that, if you're going to categorise things like that, it's also a hospital romance (though fans of hospital romances would get some surprises) and a really excellent book.
And another kind of Library Cataloguing Data: the book I have just finished reading includes in its cataloguing data the following subject categories: "1,. War Widows - Fiction... 4. Haunted Hospitals _ Fiction . 5. Horror tales." Does this imply that there's an actual category of haunted hospital fiction (and, even more alarming thought, a category of haunted hospital non-fiction)? It overlooks that, if you're going to categorise things like that, it's also a hospital romance (though fans of hospital romances would get some surprises) and a really excellent book.