Microstory 1375: Imbalanced

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Religious Studies Student: Hi. Quick question. Where are your books on religion?

Reference Librarian: You happen to be right in the right place. They’re in the 200s, right here.

Religious Studies Student: Oh, okay. Thanks

Reference Librarian: Well, I can still narrow it down for you further. What exactly are you looking for?

Religious Studies Student: Actually, I’m not looking for anything in particular. I’m taking Religious Studies at Hillside University, and this is meant to be my final project. I can do a presentation on anything. It can be a paper, or a slideshow, or whatever I want. She’s even letting me choose the topic. I don’t care much for the subject as I thought I would when I enrolled, and I have no clue what to study here.

Reference Librarian: Then let’s start broad, and work our way down from there.

Religious Studies Student: Okay.

Reference Librarian: These ones here are more general, like what is religion, and whatever. This section is more on the philosophical side. Then all of these are about Christianity. The small group at the end are about other religions.

Religious Studies Student: Other religions, besides Christianity?

Reference Librarian: That’s right.

Religious Studies Student: Just to be clear; all these books are about Christianity, and this tiny little, pathetic group of everything else.

Reference Librarian: Yes. Unfortunately, the decimal classification system is not perfect. There’s actually a lot of controversy surrounding it. You are not the first person to notice.

Religious Studies Student: I’m not, hmm?

Reference Librarian: Nope.

Religious Studies Student: Has there been a lot of research about these sorts of issues?

Reference Librarian: Um, I don’t think so. I mean, I’m no expert on it.

Religious Studies Student: You’re not?

Reference Librarian: I’m an expert on the classification system, not the controversy.

Religious Studies Student: Oh.

Reference Librarian: But I imagine there’s not much; maybe a few articles, some angry social media posts here and there.

Religious Studies Student: Maybe I could do my project on that. Maybe I could write about this whole thing.

Reference Librarian: I think that would be a great idea. I have a few books you can check out. This one, and this one, for starters. You’ll also want some information on library science. You look here to get started. Let me go look for those, while you see if there’s anything else here that would help.

Religious Studies Student: Okay, cool. Thanks!