How hard could it be to find a book in a library? I mean, once you know which library the book is in (thanks to an online database), where all the books with similar call numbers are stored and also that the book has not been checked out by anyone else, it's almost a guarantee that you'll be able to locate the said book, isn't it? Apparently not, I say, and I roll my eyes at the freaking Stanford University Libraries, who are also my benevolent employers on two counts. I was looking for this book called iCon which tells a tale of Steve Jobs and was apparently so controversial (within Apple, that is - the sane world wouldn't actually give two hoots) that it was forbidden on Apple Computer's premises. I found the call number for it (QA76.2.J63Y677 2005) and went to Jackson Business Library for the first time where said book was apparently kept. I finally found the place where all the books starting with QA were kept. Luckily there was only one shelf because the Business Library is not all that big. On that shelf, I found the place where all the QA76 books were kept. Any sane person would assume that had I simply continued this divide and conquer search for a couple of more minutes, I would have envitably encountered the book. Hélas that that was not my fate. Apparently, once I found the QA76 books, I was at a complete loss to find any of them with QA76.2 in them. In fact, the numbers were all over the place… next to a QA76, there was a QA276 and then some QA78s. It made no sense to me whatsoever. I finally found a bunch of books having something to do with Apple and Macs, such as a couple of guides to the PowerPC architecture (the question as to what these were doing in a business library in the first place is not one I'm going to delve into right now) and also a book called the Cult of Macintosh, which I'd heard of. I searched in vain for ten minutes; I forgot about the blasted call number and simply went through the title of every single book on the shelf… nothing. Finally, I just said "Gah!" and issued the Cult of Macintosh book instead. And while we're on the topic, a few words about this book I issued: the Cult of Macintosh is a ridiculous book and was a complete let down compared to the same author's writings on a column called "Cult of Macintosh" on Wired.com. I don't recommend bothering to read it… talks about all sorts of fetishes and weird stuff like Mac porn (yes, the G4 girl!), how to make a bong out of a Mac Classic and how Macworld Conferences smelt of marijuana while PC World smelt of alcohol and how the Macintosh engineers were all high while they were making the Mac. Anyway, getting back to the topic of library call numbers, I'm sure they make a lot of sense to the librarians (may peace be upon them) and I'm sure that they can dissect every call number and tell me exactly how the letters and numbers translate into the astrological sign under which a particular book was acquired by the library, but, unless I'm taking a librarian along with me whilst I'm looking for books, that's not much help and there just ought to be a more human-friendly system for going through a few million books. I mean, I'm sure a bunch of robots could come in and help out, or something… I mean they always manage to do some pretty cool stuff in Japan, don't they? Well, yes, I know I'm looking over the extremely important point of what such an army of robots could do if some Evil Librarian™ took over them or their main control center was destroyed and they started reshelving books in the wrong places! I gasp at the thought of World Domination by Library Robots™.

Anyway, you get the idea.

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