Questions & answers

Use the search box at the top of the reading room. You can search by title, author, series, subject, ISBN, or call number — all at once. Partial words work, so "tolk" finds Tolkien.

Each strip is a genre — parmalambë's whimsical name for a shelf-grouping, with the everyday name underneath. Click a genre chip to see everything in it. The colours carry through the whole site so a genre is recognisable at a glance.

Books are arranged across numbered shelves. A book's page shows where it lives — its shelf number and the genre on that shelf — and, when the librarian has mapped the room, a little diagram with that shelf ringed. Each column in the diagram is one bookcase, numbered top to bottom, so you can walk straight to it.

It's the book's address on the shelf. Within a genre, books are ordered by call number (author for fiction, subject for non-fiction), so once you're at the right shelf they read in a sensible run. You don't need to understand it to find a book — just match the number on the spine.

Very tall books don't fit a normal shelf, so they live together in a big books / folio section rather than on their genre shelf. The book's page tells you when that's the case.

Yes — use ★ Highest rated in the sort bar. Ratings are community averages drawn from Open Library, shown as stars on a book's page. Not every book has one.

Yes. Register with a username, email and password, then the librarian approves your account. Once you're approved you can sign in and request books. You can browse and search without an account — you just can't borrow.

On a book's page, choose Request to borrow. That sends a request to the librarian, who confirms it and sets a due date. You'll see the book under "Checked out now" in your account — first as "awaiting confirmation", then as an active loan once confirmed. You can cancel a request yourself any time before it's confirmed.

Checked out means someone already has it out or has a pending request — only one person can hold a book at a time. Not on the shelf means the librarian has marked it missing while they track it down; it can't be borrowed until it turns up. In both cases the borrow button is hidden until the book is available again.

The due date is set when the librarian confirms your loan and appears in your account. You can renew an active loan yourself — each renewal adds another loan period — up to a set number of times. After that, ask the librarian to extend it by hand. If a book is overdue or due soon, a gentle banner reminds you on every page.

Bring it back to the librarian, who marks it returned. It then moves to "Past borrowing" in your account.

Pending means the librarian hasn't approved it yet — you'll be able to sign in once they do. Suspended means borrowing is paused on your account; ask the librarian to restore it.