On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 7:21 AM, Keith Jenkins <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I think that one advantage of browsing a physical shelf is that the
> shelf is linear, so it's very easy to methodically browse from the
> left end of the shelf to the right, and have a sense that you haven't
> accidentally missed anything.  (Ignore, for the moment, all the books
> that happen to be checked out and not on the shelf...)

Also ignore the fact that in a lot of cases, the subject authority's
decision of what a book is about may not correspond to what I think a
book is about. This is especially true in the case where I'm doing
research on a topic that's not the primary subject of many books, but
is covered in books about other things.

I'd hypothesize that maybe stack browsing is satisfying largely
because it gives you the opportunity to look into each work, see its
format and level of depth and treatment of your topic of interest. You
get a whole lot of information (information that isn't contained in
the catalog records) really fast.

Stack browsing may make people happy, but I'm far from convinced that
providing a linear browse in shelf order will provide the same
satisfaction.

Cheers,
-Nate