The state of the bookshelves
Jul. 2nd, 2023 03:23 pmSo, Twitter's a gigantic mess at the moment, guess I'll write about this here. I guess I should explain the background first.
So when I first moved into the Solarium, Geoff and Alex told me about the free-books shelves. See, when Tim moved out, and later when Ray and Grace moved out, they left behind their shelves full of books. Since then, the residents of the Solarium had been giving these books away to guests -- encouraging guests to take any books they wanted from these shelves. Part of the idea, they told me, was that once enough books were taken, we would be able to use those bookcases for ourselves.
(Couldn't we just give the books to a library or something if that was what we wanted? Yes, but that's less fun.)
Now Geoff had his own large bookcases, and Alex doesn't have many books, but I'd been stuck with the dinky (and inconveniently placed) bookshelf that Sapphire and Titania had left behind when they moved out. So I don't know how much of a point of giving away the books Geoff and Alex actually made -- seems like not a lot. I stepped things up.
These days if you come visit the Solarium, you will see the books on the free shelves placed neatly on their sides, titles visible, as one expects of books on bookshelves. (Well, OK, some of the shelves *themselves* are rather slanted, and we'll need to fix that at some point, but ignoring that.) Some of the shelves are a bit high up, and some are a bit low down, and some are behind the dinner table; but all of the books are at least somewhat visible.
But when I moved in that was not the case! Shelves often had the books on them lain horizontally and stacked -- oftentimes, in more than one layer, with a pile of books hidden behind another pile of books. Not only that, but there were books on the shelves hidden behind the comfy chair, where hardly anyone would think to looks. This problem only got worse after the back of the chair *broke*, and you could no longer move the chair out of the way without the back falling down to fill up the space. You'd have to crouch down there and let the back of the chair rest on you if you wanted to examine those books. There were even books all the way on top of the tall bookcase, where hardly anyone could reach unassisted, and I later found one book that had fallen behind a bookcase.
But, well, I've made a big point of making sure every visitor knows about the shelves of free books, and the result is that over time we've given a lot away! Most people don't take any, to be sure. The books after all have been pretty picked over by this point, and while what's left isn't always necessarily bad, it can certainly be a bit, uh, specialized. Lot of philosophy books, for those who are into that, but most people aren't.
So most people don't take any books, and those that do usually only take one. Still, occasionally someone will take three or four or five; and on rare occasion someone will take some ridiculous number like 20 or so. Over time it's added up, and now there are many fewer!
And one day this past January, I decided that there were probably few enough books remaining in total that I could likely make all of them visible. No more books behind the comfy chair! No more books behind books! Every book would be visible and vertical, possible for someone to spot and take. Not necessarily very visible, mind you, but visible. My hope was this would speed things up.
Now the thing is of course that some shelves are more visible than others; so I put as many books as possible on the shelves that were more visible, and as few as possible on the shelf that was least visible. Then, thereafter, whenever anyone would take a book, I would move books off of the least visible shelf to fill in the gap that had been created on a more visible shelf. Every book must be as visible as possible!
I cleared one small shelf this way; then another; then another. But OK. Next were the big shelves.
See, I'd started by focusing on the lowest shelves on the narrow-but-tall bookcase. That's because these shelves were partly hidden by the comfy chair, and also often hidden by the TV tray. But clearing those didn't directly help us get to the goal of reclaiming a bookcase.
So, next on my list was the small bookcase. The small bookcase has two shelves only, both low to the ground, and both hidden behind the dinner table. I didn't think it was as bad as those low shelves on the tall bookcase, but it was pretty bad. And it's a wide bookcase, so each of its shelves holds a lot of books.
So I started clearing it, first the lower shelf, and then the higher shelf. Because, you see, once the bookcase was entirely clear, then finally I could claim it for myself, and move my books out of the bookshelf in the corner. (Couldn't I do that when, say, just one shelf was clear? Notionally, yes, but I worried this might confuse people.)
Well. This past Wednesday, Bit came by, and while they were here, they took one books, and reserved 22 more. Now normally I'd be all, take it or don't, it's first-come-first-served, but twenty-two! I trust Bit enough that I expect they will in fact come back for them, so I decided to allow it. With those 22 books reserved (plus a few more that I'll get to), the small bookcase is now entirely clear!
Well, kind of. It's where I'm keeping the reserved books for now. I figure I can't really use it for my own books until Bit really does come back for those. But I expect they will, and then it will be done!
But let's say we count those books as taken. What's next? Beyond just "people continue to take more books"?
Well, as always, I have to continue clearing the least visible shelves. Right now, I figure, that's the top shelves on the tall bookcase. So I'm starting with the taller of the two (the top right one), and then next will be top left. After that, I figure, I should switch focus from visiblity to removing enough books to fix the crooked shelves. And then after that, I should focus on the tiny shelf on the tall bookcase, which is hard to see into.
And if we make it that far...? Well, the thing about trying to get as many books as possible onto the more visible shelves is that they often end up pretty packed in there, and a bit hard to pull out (or put back in). I'm considering this a secondary concern beneath visibility, but it does seem to somewhat discourage taking the books, so I figure, instead of fixing on one shelf and clearing it, instead I should try to remove one book from *each* shelf so that no shelf is packed.
...or maybe I should just go for the lowest shelf on the medium-sized bookcase. People do have to crouch down to really inspect that shelf, after all, even if its immediate visiblity is pretty good. :P
OK, but where are we currently?
Well... so remember I said Bit's reservation of 22 books still wasn't enough to clear the small bookcase. But, today I'm going to go visit Lizz, and I'm going to bring them 5 books (which I've already set aside), and that (if we count Bit's reservation) will clear the small bookcase, so I've already started clearing the topmost shelf in the tall bookcase. 20 books to go until next clear! :)
Now the thing about the books I'm bringing Lizz is... you see, a while back, Lizz asked me if it would be OK to take a bunch of books from the shelves, not to read, but to destroy as raw material for an art project! Now normally I always encourage people to take whatever books they want, but that I was a bit uncomfortable with, and asking Geoff and Alex, their opinion was the same.
But then I remembered that we have a whole bunch of self-help (and in particular business self-help) books on the shelves and I was like... you know, I'm OK with you destroying those ones, and Geoff and Alex agreed. So, Lizz took a whole bunch of those! Hardcover ones only, though. Paperback won't work for what they're doing.
They didn't take all of them, though, but today I'll be bringing them the remaining ones. :) Five more books gone!
And then on Tuesday I'm going to be brining Neha some books she asked for from the shelves. :) I haven't set those aside yet, and it's possible she might not actually want all of them, but, hey, we'll see, could easily get rid of 4-5 more books this way. :)
So -- small bookcase is clear (modulo Bit), 20 books to next shelf clear, with that number set to go down soon. :D And once Bit comes back for their books I'll finally have a decent bookcase! :D
Well -- if Twitter continues to be garbage, and I go back to posting tiny updates here, expect an "N books to next shelf clear" or "Shelf clear! N books to next" post whenever someone takes any more. :P
-Harry
So when I first moved into the Solarium, Geoff and Alex told me about the free-books shelves. See, when Tim moved out, and later when Ray and Grace moved out, they left behind their shelves full of books. Since then, the residents of the Solarium had been giving these books away to guests -- encouraging guests to take any books they wanted from these shelves. Part of the idea, they told me, was that once enough books were taken, we would be able to use those bookcases for ourselves.
(Couldn't we just give the books to a library or something if that was what we wanted? Yes, but that's less fun.)
Now Geoff had his own large bookcases, and Alex doesn't have many books, but I'd been stuck with the dinky (and inconveniently placed) bookshelf that Sapphire and Titania had left behind when they moved out. So I don't know how much of a point of giving away the books Geoff and Alex actually made -- seems like not a lot. I stepped things up.
These days if you come visit the Solarium, you will see the books on the free shelves placed neatly on their sides, titles visible, as one expects of books on bookshelves. (Well, OK, some of the shelves *themselves* are rather slanted, and we'll need to fix that at some point, but ignoring that.) Some of the shelves are a bit high up, and some are a bit low down, and some are behind the dinner table; but all of the books are at least somewhat visible.
But when I moved in that was not the case! Shelves often had the books on them lain horizontally and stacked -- oftentimes, in more than one layer, with a pile of books hidden behind another pile of books. Not only that, but there were books on the shelves hidden behind the comfy chair, where hardly anyone would think to looks. This problem only got worse after the back of the chair *broke*, and you could no longer move the chair out of the way without the back falling down to fill up the space. You'd have to crouch down there and let the back of the chair rest on you if you wanted to examine those books. There were even books all the way on top of the tall bookcase, where hardly anyone could reach unassisted, and I later found one book that had fallen behind a bookcase.
But, well, I've made a big point of making sure every visitor knows about the shelves of free books, and the result is that over time we've given a lot away! Most people don't take any, to be sure. The books after all have been pretty picked over by this point, and while what's left isn't always necessarily bad, it can certainly be a bit, uh, specialized. Lot of philosophy books, for those who are into that, but most people aren't.
So most people don't take any books, and those that do usually only take one. Still, occasionally someone will take three or four or five; and on rare occasion someone will take some ridiculous number like 20 or so. Over time it's added up, and now there are many fewer!
And one day this past January, I decided that there were probably few enough books remaining in total that I could likely make all of them visible. No more books behind the comfy chair! No more books behind books! Every book would be visible and vertical, possible for someone to spot and take. Not necessarily very visible, mind you, but visible. My hope was this would speed things up.
Now the thing is of course that some shelves are more visible than others; so I put as many books as possible on the shelves that were more visible, and as few as possible on the shelf that was least visible. Then, thereafter, whenever anyone would take a book, I would move books off of the least visible shelf to fill in the gap that had been created on a more visible shelf. Every book must be as visible as possible!
I cleared one small shelf this way; then another; then another. But OK. Next were the big shelves.
See, I'd started by focusing on the lowest shelves on the narrow-but-tall bookcase. That's because these shelves were partly hidden by the comfy chair, and also often hidden by the TV tray. But clearing those didn't directly help us get to the goal of reclaiming a bookcase.
So, next on my list was the small bookcase. The small bookcase has two shelves only, both low to the ground, and both hidden behind the dinner table. I didn't think it was as bad as those low shelves on the tall bookcase, but it was pretty bad. And it's a wide bookcase, so each of its shelves holds a lot of books.
So I started clearing it, first the lower shelf, and then the higher shelf. Because, you see, once the bookcase was entirely clear, then finally I could claim it for myself, and move my books out of the bookshelf in the corner. (Couldn't I do that when, say, just one shelf was clear? Notionally, yes, but I worried this might confuse people.)
Well. This past Wednesday, Bit came by, and while they were here, they took one books, and reserved 22 more. Now normally I'd be all, take it or don't, it's first-come-first-served, but twenty-two! I trust Bit enough that I expect they will in fact come back for them, so I decided to allow it. With those 22 books reserved (plus a few more that I'll get to), the small bookcase is now entirely clear!
Well, kind of. It's where I'm keeping the reserved books for now. I figure I can't really use it for my own books until Bit really does come back for those. But I expect they will, and then it will be done!
But let's say we count those books as taken. What's next? Beyond just "people continue to take more books"?
Well, as always, I have to continue clearing the least visible shelves. Right now, I figure, that's the top shelves on the tall bookcase. So I'm starting with the taller of the two (the top right one), and then next will be top left. After that, I figure, I should switch focus from visiblity to removing enough books to fix the crooked shelves. And then after that, I should focus on the tiny shelf on the tall bookcase, which is hard to see into.
And if we make it that far...? Well, the thing about trying to get as many books as possible onto the more visible shelves is that they often end up pretty packed in there, and a bit hard to pull out (or put back in). I'm considering this a secondary concern beneath visibility, but it does seem to somewhat discourage taking the books, so I figure, instead of fixing on one shelf and clearing it, instead I should try to remove one book from *each* shelf so that no shelf is packed.
...or maybe I should just go for the lowest shelf on the medium-sized bookcase. People do have to crouch down to really inspect that shelf, after all, even if its immediate visiblity is pretty good. :P
OK, but where are we currently?
Well... so remember I said Bit's reservation of 22 books still wasn't enough to clear the small bookcase. But, today I'm going to go visit Lizz, and I'm going to bring them 5 books (which I've already set aside), and that (if we count Bit's reservation) will clear the small bookcase, so I've already started clearing the topmost shelf in the tall bookcase. 20 books to go until next clear! :)
Now the thing about the books I'm bringing Lizz is... you see, a while back, Lizz asked me if it would be OK to take a bunch of books from the shelves, not to read, but to destroy as raw material for an art project! Now normally I always encourage people to take whatever books they want, but that I was a bit uncomfortable with, and asking Geoff and Alex, their opinion was the same.
But then I remembered that we have a whole bunch of self-help (and in particular business self-help) books on the shelves and I was like... you know, I'm OK with you destroying those ones, and Geoff and Alex agreed. So, Lizz took a whole bunch of those! Hardcover ones only, though. Paperback won't work for what they're doing.
They didn't take all of them, though, but today I'll be bringing them the remaining ones. :) Five more books gone!
And then on Tuesday I'm going to be brining Neha some books she asked for from the shelves. :) I haven't set those aside yet, and it's possible she might not actually want all of them, but, hey, we'll see, could easily get rid of 4-5 more books this way. :)
So -- small bookcase is clear (modulo Bit), 20 books to next shelf clear, with that number set to go down soon. :D And once Bit comes back for their books I'll finally have a decent bookcase! :D
Well -- if Twitter continues to be garbage, and I go back to posting tiny updates here, expect an "N books to next shelf clear" or "Shelf clear! N books to next" post whenever someone takes any more. :P
-Harry
