Library vocabulary

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Misha Angelovskiy wrote:

> There's a magical English designation of "circulating" to refer to
> these books.  (As opposed to reference items that cannot be taken out
> of the library.)  To translate the German phrase you can go with
> something as wordy as:
> 
> You may borrow these books, You may check these books out;
> 
> or simply label the shelves as
> 
> Circulating
> 
> or something along those lines.
> 
> NB: I believe all these suggestion are acceptable in Standard
> American English, not sure if the Britons would say them differently.
> And I really hope that I didn't misunderstand the German phrase--it's
> not mitnehmen to keep and never to return, is it?

This is a situation where we need a retronym. The assumption in most 
American libraries unless you have reason to think otherwise is that all 
books circulate. So you generally see signs in a few small areas saying 
that assumption is unwarranted ("reference," etc.), while the rest are 
unmarked.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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