Reshelving 1984
Recently, This magazine’s blog linked to an item on a Berkeley, California, blog about a project called the Ministry of Reshelving. In Other Media will step aside to allow the folks behind this to explain their activities and what they would like others to do. The group’s instructions read: “1. Select a local bookstore to carry out your reshelving activities. 2. Download and print ‘This book has been relocated by the Ministry of Reshelving’ bookmarks and ‘All copies of 1984 have been relocated’ notecards to take with you to the bookstore. Or make your own. We recommend bringing a notecard and 5-10 bookmarks to each store. 3. Go to the bookstore and locate its copies of George Orwell’s 1984. Unless the Ministry of Reshelving has already visited this bookstore, it is probably currently incorrectly classified as ‘Fiction’ or ‘Literature.’ 4. Discreetly move all copies of 1984 to a more suitable section, such as ‘Current Events,’ ‘Politics,’ ‘History,’ ‘True Crime,’ or ‘New Non-Fiction.’
In the long history of obnoxious and juvenile “culture jamming,” this could be one of the most moronic acts yet. And if you are lucky enough to work in a bookstore that happens to be visited by one of these astute political commentators, no one will blame you if you spend a few rage-filled days wishing harm on these pranksters. Some of the bookseller and librarian reaction to this scheme in the comments on the Ministry’s site has been supportive, but the harsher reaction is more fun to read. One poster, calling himself Mr. X, wrote: “As a librarian, I thank you for not encouraging this at the library. Because if I caught some late-teen fuckhead messing with my shelves to make a amateurish political point, I do believe they’d be in physical danger.” Another anonymous poster added: “i work at a book store as well and all i can say is that this would just make it harder for all those people who actually want to read 1984 to find it. Don’t be a douche.”
Amen.
Related links:
Click here for the original Ministry of Reshelving post
Click here for photos of the Ministry of Reshelving at work
