If a library (or bookshop or whatever) is going to divide things up by some kind of genre classification then I think the ideal is for each book to appear in all the places that it might fit, rather than just one of them. (e.g. Pratchett in both humour and fantasy.) For a library that might prove expensive, though; but you could work around this by having card markers in all but one of the places directing the reader to the location where the physical book might be found. (Symbolic links instead of hard links/copies, in other words.)
Shelving alphabetically still has a slight wrinkle: a book with multiple authors might be sought (or impulse-picked) from the position of any of the authors (e.g. Deus Irae belongs in both D and Z).
Hardbacks vs paperbacks just makes me wonder if different librarians are in charge of each l-)
and regarding the first half of the post
If a library (or bookshop or whatever) is going to divide things up by some kind of genre classification then I think the ideal is for each book to appear in all the places that it might fit, rather than just one of them. (e.g. Pratchett in both humour and fantasy.) For a library that might prove expensive, though; but you could work around this by having card markers in all but one of the places directing the reader to the location where the physical book might be found. (Symbolic links instead of hard links/copies, in other words.)
Shelving alphabetically still has a slight wrinkle: a book with multiple authors might be sought (or impulse-picked) from the position of any of the authors (e.g. Deus Irae belongs in both D and Z).
Hardbacks vs paperbacks just makes me wonder if different librarians are in charge of each l-)