Books on the shelf

[Mapraputa Is]

How do you keep your books on the shelves: titles on the visible parts of covers going up or down? I noticed that I often mix styles, yet if to think about it, bottom-up seems the only right way. How about books written in right-to-left languages? And what about left-handed readers, any differences?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

I was going to answer "chaotically" because I never give it a moment's thought. But I looked at the shelf and without exception, the spines read top to bottom.

Now, if you put them the other way, then any pictures on the front would be upside down. Therefore, publishers seem to think that top to bottom is the right way. I'm fascinated to hear why you think bottom up is right!

[Kristin Stromberg]

All of my books that were published in France are bottom up rather than top down. So even publishers of left to right languages don't agree on which is better! I guess it all depends on which way you like to tilt your head when perusing your bookshelves.

[Jim Yingst]

The spines on my books are all positioned to read top-to-bottom, because that's pretty much standard in every library or bookstore I've seen in the US at least, and I guess I'm conditioned to accept it as the norm. It would seem silly to me to have them vary - when they're on the shelf, that would just make it more difficult to read them; of course I want them all pointing the same way.

For languages normally read top-to-bottom anyway (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean if I remember correctly) this would be a non-issue. But for languages that are either left-to-right or right-to-left, there's a problem when you store them on the shelf. Either force the reader to turn their head clockwise, or counterclockwise. Or force them to alternate randomly - but that seems silly. So it makes since IMO to either have the spines all top-to-bottom, or all bottom-to-top.

I think that this is one of those things that could have easily "evolved" either way. I suspect that when pubishing first developed, there may well have been equal numbers of books with top-to-bottom spines as bottom-to-top. However once one style becomes more prominent (for a given language or country), it's to a publisher's advantage to conform to that style, so that a person looking at books on the shelf will be more likely to be able to read the title easily (and thus more likely to perhaps buy the book). In the US, and I'm pretty sure also in Canada and the UK at least, top-to-bottom is the norm. From Map's comments I suspect in Russia it was bottom-to-top. Am I right?

[EFH]: I was going to answer "chaotically" because I never give it a moment's thought. But I looked at the shelf and without exception, the spines read top to bottom.

Now, if you put them the other way, then any pictures on the front would be upside down.

Yes - the fact that books in the US are almost always arranged this way (spine orientation is 90 degrees clockwise from cover orientation) makes it seem more natural to us to place the spine top-to-bottom, even if we're not consciously thinking about it. I bet Kristin's French books all have the front cover oriented with the top up, correct? Even though we don't generally see the front or back cover when it's on the shelf. Of course we do typically look at the cover and contents just after taking a book off the shelf, and possibly just before putting it on the shelf, so it's normal for us to avoid having to flip the book over every time we go to or from the shelf.

[Map]: And what about left-handed readers, any differences?

No. Can't imagine any reason for difference here. Most of us don't read with our hands.
[ September 14, 2005: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Ernest: I'm fascinated to hear why you think bottom up is right!

I thought the explanation is purely irrational, has something to do with Lakoff's "up is good, down is bad" metaphor. When the text is oriented top-to-bottom, it is "locked", while bottom-to-top orientation is open into infinity. Well, I warned that the explanation I had in mind is purely irrational. For the same reason I like Arabic script, it is "opened" up. But perhaps the true explanation is simplier...

Jim: From Map's comments I suspect in Russia it was bottom-to-top. Am I right?

You know what, the only Russian book I have right now is "Web Design", and the author designed the cover himself. It has two lines on the spine; the title goes bottom-to-top, and the author's name top-to-bottom. :roll: Need to run further investigations... Especially regarding old books -- I think you are right and we can find books printed in both styles if to look back. I did some googling though and found this quote, that confirms Kristin's observations:

The title of a book is traditionally written on the spine. In Chinese and similar languages, this is naturally written top-to-bottom (as the characters don't change orientation, and the language is generally written top-to-bottom), but in left-to-right (and right-to-left) languages, the spine is usually too narrow for the title to fit in its natural orientation, and conventions differ. In the United States and England, titles are written top-to-bottom; when placed face-up, the title is correctly oriented left-to-right.
This also underlies why multiple volume works are often shelved right-to-left: they're arranged "as if a stack".
In continental Europe, the general convention is to write titles bottom-to-top on the spine. This is unusual, in that no writing system goes bottom-to-top, and requires that the book be placed face-down for the title on the spine to be right-side up. However, it results in multivolume works being shelved (correctly) left-to-right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spine_%28book%29

From an online discussion (FWIW):

In my library titles of books in Latvian, Polish, Russian, Czech, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Armenian, Albanian, Romanian, French, Italian, Spanish (Spain and South America), Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil) and German are all printed bottom to top.
Exceptions: three German, two Spanish, three French, one Italian are top to bottom. French books titles translated from English are top to bottom like English (i.e. Reader's Digest books).
Danish, Norwegian, Dutch: top to bottom.
India (former Brit colony): three top to bottom, one bottom to top.
One Turkish is top to bottom, another bottom to top.
Japanese and Chinese titles: top to bottom (but that's the way they write).
It seems therefore that the top to bottom way is essentially anglophone and perhaps also Scandinavian. I have not seen any English title printed bottom to top, except for one Australian book (but you know they are upside down).
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=19794

I also found a few pictures of Russian books on the shelves, and they all are arranged bottom-to-top:
Link1
Link2
Link3

And if I am not mistaken, a Hebrew book I have in sight runs the title (or whatever it is ) top-to-bottom.
[ September 15, 2005: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Dave Lenton]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
In the US, and I'm pretty sure also in Canada and the UK at least, top-to-bottom is the norm. From Map's comments I suspect in Russia it was bottom-to-top. Am I right?

I've got a few Greek books and have always wondered why the words on the spine seem to be going "wrong" way. It does make them look odd in comparison with the rest of my bookshelf.

It would be interesting if Russian books do in general go bottom-to-top on the spine. I wonder if its possible that both Greek and Russian books do this because of a common cultural background. I did have a nice theory in my head that maybe its something that Orthodox/Eastern-Romanic influenced countries have in common until someone mentioned that France also has bottom-to-top written spines. Oh well... any other theories?

[fred rosenberger]

I worked in a bookstore chain off and on for 10 years. The title is read down, and the reason was simple (at least for every book I've ever seen). Put your finger on the book, and tilt it out a little so you can see the front cover. Is it right-side up or up-side down?

Every book i've ever seen (and i live in the U.S.A.) would require the title to be read down. But in the store, if for some reason the title read the other way, we'd still shelve it so the cover is right-side up.

[John Dunn]

Every book - and I got lots - that is standing up on one of my bookselves is, as fred pointed out, in the direction of the book cover. (So top->bottom).

I also group my books by Read/To-Be-Read. The "Read" books get grouped by catagory. I only keep the 'keepers' as there is a serious space problem in NYC and I just can keep 'em ALL!!! Almost three out of four times I go to Barnes & Noble, I come out with a book to add to my "To-Be-Read" shelf. When I finish my current book, I always have a good selection from which to choose, for my next read.
[ September 15, 2005: Message edited by: John Dunn ]

[R K Singh]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
[b]For the same reason I like Arabic script, it is "opened" up. But perhaps the true explanation is simplier...

I remember,long back (I think I was in class/std 7 or 8th), I read that Urdu(sister of Arabic) is written right to left becuase there alphabets are circular(arc) and if you write/draw arc[mostly downwards] on paper(old) from left to write then it would tear the paper.

Afterwards, atleast I feel that drawing arc makes you put more pressure on paper if you are drawing left to right.

[Marc Peabody]

(from US)

I envisioned walking up to my bookcase at home and my head immediately tilted to the right.

Top-down.

[John Dunn]

Did your mouth also water?
[ September 15, 2005: Message edited by: John Dunn ]