Editing 2791: Bookshelf Sorting

{{comic
| number    = 2791
| date      = June 19, 2023
| title     = Bookshelf Sorting
| image     = bookshelf_sorting_2x.png
| imagesize = 425x255px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Of course, I sort all my bookshelves the normal way, alphabetically (by first sentence).
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOOKSHELF SORTED THE NORMAL WAY. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Some people like to sort their bookshelves by the visible color of the book's spine, for example by hue to create a rainbow effect. This is pleasing to the eye, but unhelpful when [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxmPHLU9oA trying to find a specific book]. For literary enthusiasts (AKA "Book People"), this arrangement could be seen as annoying, as they would like to be able to find specific books when they need them, and would more likely sort them by the author's last name, or by a more rigorous organizational scheme such as the {{w|Dewey Decimal Classification}}.

Unfortunately, [[Randall]] has found a ''much'' worse method of book organization - instead of sorting the books as discrete units, he has sorted their individual ''pages'' by number. This would require physically dissecting each book into its individual pages, and then organizing them into groups by page number. This organization method has a number of significant drawbacks. Firstly, it would be rather time-consuming to take each book apart. Adding a book to the shelf would also be extremely inefficient, as Randall would have to locate the correct group to insert each page into. Since books can be hundreds of pages long, there could easily be hundreds of page groups on the shelf. The reverse operation - taking a book from the shelf - would also now be significantly more difficult since one would have to locate all of the book's individual pages - if the pages have no identifying marker to indicate which book they originally came from, it may even be impossible, especially since no secondary sorting has been specified, so, for example page 1 of a book could appear early in the group of page 1s, while page 2 of the same book could appear towards the end of the group of page 2s. In practice, though, Randall appears to have sorted secondarily by book, since there seem to be repeating patterns in the size of the pages.

Taking books apart also effectively destroys the book, losing all of the physical benefits of having pages bound as a single unit, such as portability and durability. Without their protective cover, the pages would be more susceptible to damage, loss, or disruptions such as drafts. It would also reduce the resale value of the book.

It should be noted that the term "page" has an ambiguous meaning when referring to physical pages - "page" can refer both to the numbered page, and to the sheet of paper that the page is printed on. For books, this distinction is important as most books print on both sides of the paper - thus, a single sheet actually comprises ''two'' numbered pages. This is significant to Randall's sorting scheme, as he will need a mechanism to decide which of the numbered pages on each sheet will be the one that he sorts by (unless he is slicing every sheet in half, which would be immensely difficult and even more destructive).

All the front covers are on the left side, being effectively the sheet that contains pages 1 and 2, then all the pages 3 and 4, the pages 5 and 6, etcetera, with the back covers mixed in depending on the length of the (now-dismembered) book. Sorting by color has no practical use (beyond possibly that of making an aesthetic appearance), but this distribution of books, makes them useless in all situations and makes for an erratic display potentially susceptible to disordering knocks and drafts. 

There are a lot of different-sized front covers on the left side of the shelf (meaning they start with low numbers on the left). Progressing rightward, there are then repeating patterns of taller and shorter loose-leaf pages, having gathered together each a page of the same number from a different book, tracking the proportions of each cover.
After a while, the first back cover is sorted in, as the shortest book's page-count runs out, and then additional runs of pages (less those of each 'finished' book) and end-covers as necessary. At the end, there are only the last pages of the longest book left, now all uniformly in size, and its rear cover. These are either books left without any un-numbered {{w|Book design#Front matter|front matter}} (also the corresponding back matter) or the sorting and collating goes by absolute page count, not by the numbers printed on pages.

The covers matches in reverse so the longest book has the first cover and thus also the last. the second longest books cover is number two and second last etc. If this should be used to give an indication the longest books page 1 would be first and the shortest books page 1 would be last. So it the shortest book has for instance 200 pages, then its back cover would be the last of those with number 200 so the the longest books page 201 would come right after that books back cover. 

The caption claims that this is a way of sorting that "book people" hate, even more so than sorting by color of the cover/spine. It is not clear if the spine part is thrown away or just not visible, maybe being sorted towards the wall. This would make it a sort of antithesis to color sorting, not only is it not sorted by color, but the spines that usually define the color sorting are either to the back or fully removed. It might be the intent to have "the absolute opposite" of color sorting and follow this idea ad absurdum.

In the title text Randall begins by saying that he of course sorts his bookshelf alphabetically, like book people, but then he states that he sorts books by first '''sentence''' instead of the book author or book title. This is just as impractical, for most purposes of finding, as sorting by color as people then cannot find a book they haven't read (and remembered the first sentence). But at least it doesn't destroy the books and can also be accomplished by a quick glance inside each book (which bibliophiles should certainly enjoy, if it does not distract them from the task at hand) rather than having to pay much attention to exactly how you shuffle and collate many loose-leafs. You can use something like a simple {{w|merge sort}} to arrange the shelf from scratch, or do a {{w|binary search algorithm|binary search}} to find where to insert individual new books.

==Transcript==
:[A bookshelf hanging on a wall is shown. It is covered almost from left to right but not with ordinary books. To the left there are 11 covers next to each other without any paper between them. They have different heights and shades of gray. After the last of these there follows many leaves of paper of differing heights similarly to that of the covers. The top of the papers thus form a wave shape with more than twenty peaks before they reach another cover. After that there follows similar patterns with paper in different height and then a cover in between more papers. But there is a much shorter distance between the first and second cover than before the first cover, after the initial 11 covers. The next two covers are close to the first, then there is a longer stretch of paper to the fourth, much less to the fifth, and then the next three covers comes very close. There is again quite long distance to the ninth and tenth cover, and here the number of different heights for the paper are clearly less than the previous paper stretches. Finally before the last and 11th cover all the paper, not much of it though, are of the same height, and just a bit lower than the final cover. The 11 covers at the start matches the 11 covers later and they comes in reverse order throughout the paper stretches as they are sorted to begin with, so the first and last cover matches, as does number 2 and the second last etc. There is a caption beneath the panel:]
:Book people hate seeing books sorted by colors, but it turns out they get ''way'' more angry if you sort the pages by number.

{{comic discussion}}