Additionally, the re-organization project that took place recently was no small feat and really makes sense where the books are concerned. It makes a great deal of sense to organize them according to the system of the Library of Congress to facilitate browsing of other titles within the same subject matter. It also helps tremendously that all of the journals are now located on the same floor. However, I was a little dismayed to find that the journals have also been re-organized according to the Library of Congress system. As someone who has done her share of library research and seen the interiors of more libraries than I'd like to admit, it just made more sense to keep the journals organized alphabetically.
Researchers tend to search for and use journals and books differently.
When using journals, researchers tend to go to the stacks with a list of very specific citations in hand. An experienced researcher who needs to obtain 30 articles in one library run, might even alphabetize their list of citations according to the name of the journal in order to systemize and expedite the process of getting those articles. This new system unnecessarily over-complicates the process of locating journal articles. Whereas, before, it was fairly easy to locate what we needed by simply going through the stacks alphabetically and locating the title of the journal according to our list, it now involves the extra step of having to look up a call number. Not having the same extensive familiarity of the library as, say, a librarian or a library staff member, this only serves to add confusion, not to mention, additional leg-work, and additional referencing of the library map to find the location of the stack.