The Twiddy Library Stratification System

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the debut of the library arrangement scheme of the next millennium! After careful consideration of all the available material, I have come to the conclusion that the current library arrangement systems are about useful for that techno-danish that is the modern library as a glass of Kool-aid is for a dehydrated python. Therefore, I present the TWIDDY LIBRARY STRATIFICATION SYSTEM, bringing the same blast of fresh air to libraries that the Thirty Years War brought to Germany. The TLSS is a wave of the future on the Banzai Pipeline, so get in on the ground floor now!

The TLSS does away with the tediousness of having to process books in both subject indexing and classification by COMPLETELY ANNIHILATING THE FORMER. From now on, EVERY BOOK WILL BE ITS OWN SUBJECT HEADING. Say youre looking for a book on "Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings". Do a subject search in TLSS, and THERE IT IS! A BOOK ON THAT PRECISE SUBJECT! No more having to read multiple works in the same subject area now! With TLSS, you are GUARANTEED to find only works with relevance to your search! All other subject indexing systems will be banned, and the ground around them seeded with salt. Every copy in existence of the Library of Congress SH Red Books will be rounded up and sent to Europe for use as avant-garde building material.

As for classification, TLSS takes the old, biased, 19th century, old-person-smelling-like Dewey and LC systems and PUTS THEM OUT OF THEIR MISERY! First, TLSS disposes of the former idiotic ways of naming the main classification divisions after LETTERS and NUMBERS! In todays fast-paced, info-burn world, such common elements have a billion meanings! How could we possibly stretch them to include classification? Like I don't see the number 900 in a hundred different contexts every day-with all those more important uses, how am I supposed to connect it with "General geography and history"? And LC's even worse! Q for science? No, I'm sorry, but for me and 90% of my generation, the synapses connected to the concept "Q" are labeled "godlike smartass on Star Trek", and the Library of Congress CANNOT CHANGE THAT. Therefore, the ultra-modern, totally robust classification divisions in TLSS are labeled with such little-used terms as the names of Latin American capitals. And the divisions are:

• Lima-Science (See, much better than Q!)
  
  
• Brazilla-Movies
  
  
• Santiago- Electricity (except as related to science)
  
  
• Caracas-Farm animals
  
  
• Bogata-Wild Animals
  
  
• Tegucigualpa-Plants
  
  
• Ausuncion-Conspiracies
  
  
• Quito-Old Stuff (pre-1965)
  
  
• La Paz-Really Old Stuff (pre-1920)
  
  
• Sucre-Deep Stuff (Yes and Pink Floyd lyrics go here)
  
  
• Ottawa-Cool Bands
  
  
• Havana-Sucky Bands
  
  
• Miami-Elvis
  
  
• Galapagos-Funkology
  
  
• Panama City-Kung Fu Fighting
  
  
• Nicaragua -Beavis and Butthead (This division covers all materials dealing with MTV original programming)
  
  
• Buenos Dias - Misc. Works
  
  

Need a new main classification division? MAKE ONE UP! Although you may have to create a new Latin American nation to do so.

Further classification details:

• TLSS will make extensive use of mnemonics. For instance, any material dealing with George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic would have a smiley face concatenated (tacked on) to its call number. That way the average user can tell, just by a quick scan on the shelves, whether the library has the funk, or needs the funk. The opposite, the frowny face, would be used to designate materials covering either the Ebola virus or Howard Stern.
  

• There will be no cutter numbers. TLSS will instead use slasher numbers. TLSS's ultimate goal is to be featured in a John Carpenter movie.

The TLSS will be revised regularly. All rulings on classification matters will be handed down by ME! Obey me as if I was a pope! After I transcend this mortal plane, the TLSS will be revised and maintained by a shadowy "Council of 13", who will decide differences over section coverage, geographic subdivision, etc., by covert ninja campaigns of assassination. I hope to release a new edition of the TLSS every three weeks, and laugh and laugh at those who can't keep up.

As an added incentive to switch to TLSS, I plan to hire bands of Visigoths to plunder and burn any noncooperative libraries. A trial run of this program at the Brighton, MA. Boston Public Library branch resulted in the reduction of the building to a smoking ruin, the eerie silence broken only by the caws of satiated crows and the chuckling of the barbarian warriors as they easily disabled the Cyberpatrol software and browsed on over to www.bigbutt.com.

As you can see, TLSS will readily guide us into a brave new world. In closing, I beg my audience to have pity on me. Finals will be over soon.