I suspect lots of academics organize their books like I do: by size, where they fit, in a collection of random second-hand bookshelves purchased over the years and squeezed into an apartment. Because that's what we can afford to do.

This is a small thing, but connected to a bigger thing. Institutions are demanding that faculty broadcast their living spaces to their students right now, and vice versa, and that's really invasive in ways that should be thought about more carefully.

It's just bringing up a lot of the anxieties I had when I had to skype into an academic job interview and couldn't find a place in my apartment with a background that looked "professional"--because I wasn't being paid enough to live in a place up to their standards.

And I have just been thinking about all of the adjuncts who have a million other things to worry about and are more precarious than ever, but who are also getting shamed about their living spaces that have now been forced to become "professional" spaces.

I wonder what happened to all of those backgrounds the school picture people used when I was growing up. There was a library one in there.