We used to do photo montages of all our books. The one you see here is of 2,100 of the 2,300 books we took to Blaze in 2018. And we used a computer database back in 2017 – the same software I use to keep track of my 14,000 books at home. But we’ve got a bit relaxed about it over the years. Because I’ve handled every one of the 3,000 books we’re bring in 2025 at least four timse, I can say that I have a fair idea if we have it or not. Just don’t ask me exactly where. But feel free to ask. Before you ask, though, whether we have ‘Rarnaby Budge’ by Dikkens with two k’s the answer is: No, we don’t.
We did have someone ask a few months ago it we had Dosteyesky’s ‘Notes from the Underground’ At the time I said yes, we’ve got one copy. Turned out we have three. Which leads to the next issue – will we sort the books on display? I think we’ll try and keep collections together. Whoever picked up four volumes of Manning Clark’s History of Australia, we still have the other two volumes waiting for you. I think they’re going to be pretty disorganized when they’re first put out on the shelves, but I’m looking forward to spending the first few days of Blaze putting them into SOME kind of order. Even so, there’ll be plenty of random juxtopositions, enough I’m sure to delight and perplex our browsers. But if you don’t see what you’re looking for, feel free to bang our big gong (in our entrance marquee) that’ll (probably) summon a library pixie who’ll put you on the path to enlightenment.
