Sideways Hymnbooks

Is there some directive about storing Hymnbooks sideways and upside down so titles can' the seen? I know storing then sideways with the binding up might cause gravity to pull at the binding and hurt the book, if it sits like that for several years, but putting binding down causes other problems. Especially in buildings that might have both English and Spanish hymnals. Also I would not think authors and publishers would appreciate hiding the titles. Libraries don't store their books like that.
I'd like to see some direction on this since it seems to be the case in about 90% of the wards I visit.

I can't imagine that there is any official policy on this. As with most details of keeping a meetinghouse well-maintained and tidy, local units should exercise good judgment for both esthetics and care. But there's not going to be a specific directive from CHQ that all hymn books must face a certain direction.

Understood. In my opinion it does not look orderly to store the books hiding the titles. While entertaining to watch, it should not be necessary for members all over the chapel to have to pull books out of the slot to find out if it is in the correct language. Correcting this has to start somewhere. I would hope that individual readers of this would do their own part to use common sense and store books like books.

We once had a bishop declare that the Church's official position was to store them binding down. The only place I've heard this is from the FM group.

I once heard of something like this happening and the bishop was called on it in a priesthood meeting by an FM guy. To the best of my and his knowledge there is no formal direction on this and the bishop was stating his own opinion as policy. Local leaders have some broad authorities but not to state personal opinion as church policy.

If there is something printed that I don't know about, please share so I can get it straight.

There's nothing in the FM Guide or the Hymn book. In the absence of any direction, I'd think it would be within the authority of the local leadership to ask the members to store it the way they want it stored.

In some of our older buildings with wider book racks, we store them two to a rack on their backs, and they seem to last longer. Our newest building has smaller racks, so if there are going to be two books in a rack, they have to be standing as they would on a library shelf.

Because our chapels are filled for most services, we swap out the Spanish language hymnals when needed, but usually have all English in the racks.

What I'm most opposed to is someone saying that the right way to store the books is to hide the titles, without having any policy statement or even evidence to support it.

There is some logic in not storing the books sideways with the binding up because of the effects of gravity, however this would have no effect on a properly bound book for several years, the cover would begin to fade first.

wrigjef wrote:There is some logic in not storing the books sideways with the binding up because of the effects of gravity, however this would have no effect on a properly bound book for several years, the cover would begin to fade first.

We prefer not to do it that way because more often than not, the books are dropped into the rack and the binding does soon tear away from the cover. But that is just logic, as you said.

Of course, everyone knows that the proper way to store a hymn book in the rack is the way I store the book in the rack. And when the next person comes along with the calling to straighten hymn books, he or she will know the proper way to store books.

You are correct that there is not an official policy. I could tell you how Elder Jacob de Jager did it as a new convert, but he no longer has the calling, either.

Well, I guess I'm lucky. Our ward has old pews. Unless you want to limit the hymnals to 6 for the entire row of the chapel, there's no choice but to put them in upright. I suspect the holders were designed to hold 3 of the old hymnals in the upright position.

One of the church buildings I attended that had both a Spanish branch and English wards had hymnbook holders installed under the seats to hold the Spanish hymnbooks. Under-the-seat hymnbook holders are commonly on the front row of the chapel, but this chapel had holders under every bench so that the members could get to the English hymnbooks on the back of the benches and the Spanish hymnbooks underneath.