Ye Olde Scope Notes: The Barcode Goes Here!
(WAVING RICKETY OLD CANE IN THE AIR) You know what’s important about librarianship? Barcode placement! It needs to be in the same place on every book! Title? Cover artwork? Scoff! How do you expect to do proper inventory (which, next to aerobic shushing, is my favorite pastime) if one of the barcodes is slightly lower than the others? Take a look at these examples:
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Perfect!
Bravo!
Missed the “m”, “e”, “a”, and “r”, but otherwise excellent!
Let this be a lesson to every librarian – never adjust!
Filed under: Articles
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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Can’t tell you how long I laughed over this post! I swear, bar codes covering the protagonist’s faces on covers will be the death of me. Thx for bringing attention to our neurosis!
One of the first things I did in my library was to change the placement to the back cover and if the placement would interfere with the summary of the book, I move to a better location. It’s well worth a little inconvenience on my part.
Amber Brown would certainly not stand for her name being covered up like that if she saw it.
Ha – I agree.
We had an underground Barcodes on the Back campaign for years at my library–and let no one tell you constant complaining doesn’t change anything. Now our covers are slick and pretty and easy to read.