Yesterday, I was browsing through books in my favorite used bookstore (where you can get most soft cover books for $2 each, a real bargain, and most books are in great shape to boot). As I was making my way through the Fiction section, I came across Diane Ackerman's <em>The Zookeeper's Wife</em>, which the <em>real</em> life story of a Polish woman who saved Jews during World War II, thus making it a non-fiction book. I came across a Denise Mina book that should've been housed in the Mystery section. I came across memoirs and biographies. In short, there were a lot of books that were not classified correctly and therefore shelved in the wrong place.

<strong>Being in the wrong place makes it hard to be found.</strong>

The used bookstore is volunteer-run, and it may be too much to ask volunteers  to know what each book is or where it belongs. Since books are donated, there is no inventory. In a regular bookstore, books are shelved by ISBN numbers and inventories are computerized. It'd be rare that book was mis-shelved unless a customer put it back where it didn't belong. If you were looking for a particular book, you could ask someone to look it up to see if it is available and if so, where it is located.

<strong>Classification is important.</strong>

When  you want to be found, especially online,  you have to know how to describe yourself and where people would look for you. In other words, you have to know how you are classified and what keywords people use to find you.