cute but very poor usability that gets in the way of exploration.

skeuomorphism for interaction systems is usually not the way. useful for communicating key metaphor, but not for overall navigation.

Bravo! I would actually want a library-sized version of this. Discoverability of books through catalogues, particularly commercial sites like Amazon, is crappy; it presents books it thinks you should buy in response to a text query. Being able to browse through a section of books in Dewey or LCC ordering like this and being able take a peek at its cover would be immensely better for discovery.