#72: Shelve materials at an appropriate height

A typical shelving unit in a public library is likely to be somewhere in the range of 8 feet high, if not higher, and to have shelves that go down almost to the floor. Try to avoid using the lowest and highest shelves as much as possible, since both are hard to access. If you must use one or the other, choose which one with your audience in mind: Children’s books should be closer to the ground since a three-foot-tall person can’t get things off a five-foot-high shelf, and adult fiction might be better off higher since it’s hard for many adults to bend or squat down to reach items that are low to the ground.