Ah yes, shifting the necessary evil that any library must undertake at one point or another. Shifting is the act of repositioning books or other library materials in order to gain more shelf space to fit additional library materials. And if you have ever worked in a library for any amount of time, chances are good that you have done a bit of shifting. This can happen in small scale daily, to accommodate for an extra book or two on a packed shelf or on a large, in-need-of-hardcore-project-planning scale. Having worked or volunteered in libraries since I was about 8 years old, I have certainly done my fair share of all kinds of shifting. On a large scale, it is quite a grueling process. I mean, you are moving large amounts of books, often from a very bottom shelf to a very top one, for a decent period of time - that takes dedication, let me tell you. In any case, today I was shifting the auction catalogs held in the Guggenheim library and although I was only moving about 3 shelves up a couple of shelves, those things are heavy! And slippery as all get out. They all have very heavy, glossy pages in order to best display the items up for auction and man does they weight add up. But now it is done, and probably won't need to be done again for another year or two...at which point I will be long gone!
Today's mileage: 3.32 mi
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