Sunday, November 1, 2009

Not Helping

There's a new holiday on the calendar, and it's not one I'm looking forward to.

November 18th is International Science Fiction Reshelving Day, and on that day--as isfrd.com explains--defenders of science fiction "will go to bookstores around the world and move science fiction and fantasy books from wherever they might be to their proper place in the “Science Fiction” section. We hope that this quiet act of protest will raise awareness of this problem and inspire new readers to explore our thought-provoking genre."

Actually, people, what your "quiet act of protest"--and you're hardly Gandhi here--will do is to make the books you love harder to find. The next time a customer comes in and asks for Margaret Atwood or Michael Chabon, he or she will be directed to an empty spot on the bookshelf because you moved the book. No sale for the book store, no sale for the author, no book for an interested potential reader. Nice job.

Thanks to The Stranger for the tip.--David E

2 comments:

The Floating Lush said...

I don't like where a lot of our genre books end up being shelved at the library, but at least I know where they are, and can help patrons find them.

This just makes things worse, and causes us to be crabby.

A pox on them!

Magers and Quinn Booksellers said...

You know what these people could do that would not irk me? They could put a bookmark in the back of their chosen books that said something like "Did you know that the book you just read was actually science fiction?" I have no problem with expanding the definition of sci-fi. I just don't want people messing up our shelves. We do that just fine ourselves, thank you.