Organic classification

I finally got around to reading one of Clay Sharkey's recent blog essays - Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags. Apart from its interest to my recent thinking on organic thinking, biomimetics and so on, I was pleased to read about one of my habits that some friends have described as bizarre or even 'anal' (rather unkindly I feel). Clay writes:

(My mother, who was a reference librarian, said she wanted to reshelve the entire University library by color, because students would come in and say "I'm looking for a sociology book. It's green...")

Yes, my book shelves, at least those that have ANY sense of order, are arranged by colour. I may not remember the author, the date, the precise subject - but I almost always remember what colour it is. The main problem with this system is publishers who make the spines a different colour from the face. (I am not yet of a mind that this is done deliberately ro undermine my classification system.)

I often find my CDs the same way, although the typically narrow and numerous shelves don't lend themselves to the same approach.

Anyway, the main thing is that I recommend this as a good essay, if you're interested in some particularly practical applications of an organic/gardening approach to modern human living.

By the way, does anyone remember that episode in Porrige when one of Fletcher's inmates says "I read a book once. Green it was." What was the guy's name?