The Book Room: Some Changes So Far

In my book work, I have broken the inertia of my thrift store's merchandising plan (plan?) of Put It Anywhere You Can and implemented a new plan: 

Put Things With Similar Things.

I mentioned this to a volunteer who was on his knees scrubbing the linoleum. He rolled his eyes. "I used to work in marketing," he said, "but I gave up trying to help here. I just clean. It's easier."
I am still energetic, however, and--with permission and help-- yesterday I moved Children's Books from down the way to right near the Book Room. (You can peek the magazines through the door.)

Also I added pictures & other kiddish things for sale. 
The painting of kids blowing a dandelion is a good example of thrift store kitsch--it's bad enough to be good.

I replaced a ugly bookshelves with narrow shelves with a smaller, nicer one for Politics and History Books {below}.
This caused my boss some pain. To him, "empty space is lost money."
I tried to suggest that presentation counts, and sometimes less is more---that the fact that the books look so much better (and fit) on these shelves might help sales. 
In fact,  a couple books sold the first day:
Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice (2014),  and The Witches: Salem, 1692 (2015). 
Hm---I see the latter got a bad review in the NYT. But I am not a curator, I am a displayer who seeks to be Fair & Balanced. 
You see I have Maureen Dowd standing next to Rush Limbaugh, and Jon Stewart next to Glenn Beck.