[PW] Origin of the term "stacks" (in the library)

[Daphne Drewello]

Alan Green wrote

> One of our professors would like to know, why do we call them "stacks" 
> (i.e., the book stacks)?  Did libraries formerly stack books flat in piles 
> on the shelves (or the floor, or on tables), before moving to the current 
> vertical shelving system?

  I wonder if it might have been the bookcases that were stacked and not the 
books?  Kind of like
barrister's cases.

Just a thought.


Daphne Drewello
Alfred Dickey Library
Jamestown, ND