Going Dewey eyed

School is a great place when there are no children around. Today was a staff training day (the children broke up for the Easter holidays yesterday) and we spent the whole day sorting out the library. Old books were given to charity, and new books were organised by author or subject. But first, bookshelves had to be moved. One teacher took over and directed others as to where shelves should be put. She then changed her mind a couple of times, finally deciding they were best out where they'd started. Another teacher and I suggested a different arrangement, to which everyone else disagreed. After trying it out, we argued our case for so long, everyone got bored and wandered off, so we won and the arrangement stayed. It was later pointed out that one shelf was in an ideal place for leaning on, in which case it would fall over and there'd probably be a flat child incident. Obviously, if that should happen, the other victor and I will blame the arrangement on someone else. 

Being one of the few who knew the whereabouts of the stickers for our distantly-related-to-the-Dewey-system system, I was given the job of labelling the non-fiction books. I often mess up important jobs, so I grabbed Ms Fab on the way to the library, thinking we could mess it up together. It took about four and a half hours and I think most books are in the right place. We didn't get too sidetracked, although we found out there's a Dewey number for books on human hair, and we had to make up categories for one or two books. 

Coming home with armfuls of stuff that was going to be thrown out, I looked at my overflowing bookshelves and longed to get them into some sort of order. I can't work out how to do it though, as they're all stacked up sideways and there are two teetering piles on the floor. Mr Chaos, after confirming that I was being sad and obsessive, has restricted me to six categories: read, unread and half-finished in fiction and non-fiction. At the moment, I have an eclectic mix. Philosophy and religion dominate the non-fiction, followed by myths, children's picture books and 'the rest'. I can't mix hardbacks and paperbacks as my shelves are different sizes, and then there're my study books, which are a mixture of fiction and fact. 

I think I'm just going to have to make Son Number One homeless and take over his room.