These photos show the shelves in the science and technology section of the Mannington Middle School Library (Dewey 500s and 600s). Each thumbnail links to a page showing a larger picture of the bookcase and a tabular listing of the books in the picture.

Photos by Iver Cooper.

Iver Cooper, the photographer and editor for this middle school library catalogue project, would like to thank his “photo analysts” for their assistance. These were John Bogan, Jill Cochran, Robert Mitchell and Kerryn Offord.

Only the circulating books in the 500 and 600 (i.e., math, science and technology) sections of the middle school library were catalogued. The photos were taken handheld, with flash illumination. Some books can’t be read because of flash burn, others because they stick in or out and are thus outside the plane of focus. Of course, if the book is turned so the spine is away from the camera, that doesn’t help, either.

The only “required” information for the catalogue was author and title (if readable). Some analysts provided additional information (publisher, year, physical description of the book) and, if it were submitted, it was included. The publisher information may have been on the spine of the book, or it may have been determined by checking the known author and title against the library of congress catalog. If a year is given, you can be sure that it was “looked up.”

Dewey Decimal numbers were unreadable. Thus, as a means of reference, the books have been labeled with a bookcase number (same as my photo number), a shelf number, and a place number (on the shelf).

The photo analysts examined compressed versions of the original photos, and in some cases, it may be possible to determine a title by inspecting the original. In addition, there is some overlap between photos, and a book which is unreadable in one may be readable in another.