Suppose a librarian were to store his books alphabetically on a long shelf, starting with the As at the left end, and continuing to the right along the shelf with no spaces between the books until the end of the Zs. If the librarian acquired a new book that belongs to the B section, once he finds the correct space in the B section, he will have to move every book over, from the middle of the Bs all the way down to the Zs in order to make room for the new book. This is an insertion sort. However, if he were to leave a space after every letter, as long as there was still space after B, he would only have to move a few books to make room for the new one. This is the basic principle of the Library Sort.