I has a library!

[wendyzski]

After taking down the wobbly thrice-moved IKEA bookshelves in the hallway and replacing them with the "new" china cabinet that Bill and John helped me haul up my back stairs last night, I then had to ponder what was going to go where. The hallway used to be the "non-fiction" section of my library, organized by general category/era. One example shelf was sailing - pirates - women pirates -women soldiers - courtesans - prostitution - crime history. However, as the upper glass-fronted section of the cabinet is slightly smaller that the shelves it replaced I was forced to ponder exactly what I wanted and where.

I used to organize my fiction by theme as well - however this sometimes meant that the same author was in two different places, and as I picked up new authors their stuff go slotted in wherever it fit, whicn meant that when I actually had a notion to read a particular book there was a lot of wandering about trying to remember what it was 'like'. Since last summer I'd had the vague idea that I should "do something" about this but had no idea what.

So now:

• The china cabinet in the hallway now contains my favorite/most prolific/longest-term authors. Those I have more than a shelf worth of their stuff, grouped generally by series. In practical terms, this means my Mercedes Lackey, Katherine Kurtz, Charles DeLint, Anne McCaffrey, Anne Bishop, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.


• On the top of the china cabinet is the early Laurel Hamilton stuff that didn't suck, all of my Comic collections (Overboard, Calvin and Hobbes, etc), my Seuss and Muppets, and my games.


• Inside the cabinet are blank books, high school and college yearbooks, photo albums, photos, and other "memory" stuff.


• All my other fiction is in the living room, generally alphabetically with anthologies in front, running straight across the several shelves. Then some of the "subjects" of my non-fiction start up on the bottom shelf and a half - Home Improvement, Costume/Sewing, Religion, Fannish stuff.


• The wooden bookcase on the east wall (that I got from ashtalet) is the primary history/culture/nonfiction section. Top two shelves run from Victorian era through Gilded age, plus the "inappropriate behavior" section (victorian murderesses, turn-of-the-century gangs, pirates, prostitutes, etc) and Social History stuff like Cod, Salt, Rum, witchcraft, plumbing, etc. Third shelf is Medieval/Elizabethan plus "leftovers" (3 books on the Mallory/Irvine expedition, 2 on the Endurance, 3 on Pompeii, etc) and 4th is Japanese - books on kimono, geisha culture, tea, and general culture/history.

The end result should provide a fairly simple flowchart minimizing the number of places I have to look when I want to find a particular book.

I've a small pile to add to my PaperbackSwap list, and another pile of "not sure where this will end up".

How do you organize your books?

Comments

[aedifica]

For the last several years, through the aftermath of two moves, my books have been organized by the order they came out of the moving box, with additional organization to make sure all the MMPBs are together and all the tall books together. I've pretty much given up on getting them any more organized until I have enough bookcases that I can have all the books one layer deep, instead of having the MMPBs stacked two deep like they are (but it's still better than the three deep that they used to be!)

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Living in very small studio apartments and then moving twice in 3 years AFTER reaching the point of my life where I actually have to PAY movers because my friends are old and creaky has changed my view of books to some extent. So has PaperbackSwap and the online reserve system of the Chicago Public Library.

Moving/rearranging/getting new shelves is an occasion to do a bit of culling. I look at the books and unless I love them, will reread them at least every 2 years or want to have around for research purposes, I don't keep them. I can send them on to people who WANT them much more than I do. Contrarywise, I can find a new author and pick up their entire backlist in one swell foop for only a few dollars in postage. If I kind of like a series but not enough to want to buy it all, I can usually lay my hands on a copy of a book for free within 2 weeks through inter library loan.

For example - I really liked the early Anita Blake books (before they turned into porn). I used to buy them all as soon as they came out, and this even carried over a bit into hardcover. But the series really went downhill for me and pretty much anything after Obsidian Butterfly I can't stand. I even put them up on a top shelf because I never looked at them. Well, when I rearranged things today I took a close look at which books I actually WANTED to have around for rereading purposes and which I hadn't touched since the initial read. So why have I been paying to haul them around? Let's cut to the chase as I'm sure there are poor deluded people who actively want to take them off my hands. Danse Macabre is already packed for shipment and three others I'm just waiting for the members to log in and respond to their wishlisting of three others.

I still have what most people (who are not geeks) would consider a ridiculous amount of books. But now pretty much all of them are there for a REASON.

[aedifica]

I'm closer to that philosophy than I used to be (and have weeded out the ones I know I won't read again), but still very emphatic that I want to be able to read whatever book I get the craving for at midnight if the desire strikes me. :-)

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

mom read me Farenheight 451 as a small girl - I must have all the books to keep them safe.

[justphoenix.livejournal.com]

Organization? What organization? They're all kind of piled on bookcases and nightstands.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

See, for me the point of having books is being able to read them whenever I want to - this is why I bought them. If I can't find them when I want to read them, this defeats the purpose of having them in the first place.

[katexxxxxx.livejournal.com]

I ran a school library for a while as well as teaching, so my books are organized in a fairly logical manner...

The main section is mostly fiction, Literature (prose, poetry and drama), and the lit crit that goes with it. This is organized by strict alphabetical order. Within each author area the books are arranged by date of publication/sequence in the series. Where there is crit to go with the lit, this follows the main text. I have over a yard of Shakespeare and related crit...

Himself has another section with his hard SF. Again, organized by author in alphabetical order.

On the landing is a huge bookcase containing most of the over-sized books, and reference books (dictionaries, Fowler, etc.). Here are things like English Castles from the Air, The Art of Josh Kirby, and all sorts, in their sections.

Above the sewing machine bench is my sewing and costume library. Lots of lovely things here, including Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocked and one on corset building.

There are 150 or so cookbooks (some fairly specialized, like my copy of New Food for Life, a Middle Eastern one, and one just about cooking with chocolate!).

There's a box on the landing of things borrowed from various friends, which need to go home at some point.

I have no idea how the GMNT is organizing his books at the moment. Most are on the shelves (the end wall of his room is shelved from floor to celing, which sounds impressive until you know his room is only 5'11" wide!). He has several hundred in a dreadful muddle. Some are school books. Most seem to live in a sort of compost heap along with his clothes on the floor.

There are not enough shelves. There are never enough shelves.

[katexxxxxx.livejournal.com]

PS: The cookbooks are in the dining room.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

my cookbooks are in the kitchen, and I am pondering putting the "sewing" books (as opposed to the costuming ones) in the sewing/rehearsal/office room - which is where the sheet music lives.

Alphabetically, but...

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Right now? Cookbooks are in shelves in the laundry room right off the kitchen.

SciFi/Fantasy/Fiction are mostly packed but were in Kidling's room.

Sewing/Costuming were in my sewing room and everything else; HowTo, Spiritual, Non-Fiction and Theatrical were all in the built-in shelving in the upstairs hallway and are now sorted and packed.

Until I find my own place, they'll all be in boxes with (hopefully) just the critical stuff I need access to, wherever I am.

Moving sucks. Never enough shelving.

Before I moved here and after I get settled, there will be wire shelving on the backs of all the doors with my SciFi/Fiction alphabetically on them. The only way I can function.

Re: Alphabetically, but...

[katexxxxxx.livejournal.com]

Hm... I have hooks and clothing rails on my doors. There's never enough space to hang things as well as never enough book space.

Re: Alphabetically, but...

[stealthbunny.livejournal.com]

Never enough wall space to hang all the completed embroideries either. I have a whole shelf of things I've done over the last 15+ years, once the walls in this place were show-cased-packed. I even have things already framed that are standing behind the door in my bedroom... waiting... woe.

Re: Alphabetically, but...

[katexxxxxx.livejournal.com]

Luckily most of my sewing goes and lives with the customers and is THEIR storage problem rather than mine! But I do also have a huge stash of patterns that could do with a bit of a sort out...

Re: Alphabetically, but...

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

The hooks I will put on the bathroom door and a row of 3 sturdy hooks mounted on a piece of wood for 'work clothes' that I wear nearly daily, if I'm sewing at home.

I still have about 8 sets of the double-length white plastic-covered wire shelving that I used in my old duplex. Unless I can find a place I can afford that has enough room for my professional sewing space *and* for a whole library, I'll need to use this method again.

Re: Alphabetically, but...

[katexxxxxx.livejournal.com]

We still have a few spare bits of wall, here and there... Part of the problem is that we both work from home, so work stuff piles up as well as just books!

Re: Alphabetically, but...

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah, I can relate...professional seamstress out of the house and painter and entertainer and...too much damned stuff!

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

Regretfully, I am not really able to organize books at the moment. The library is also Moira's workshop, and she gets that space to herself. So they're all just kind of jumbed onto bookshelves in there.

We may be able to do better when we move to the apartment.

[katexxxxxx.livejournal.com]

My main sewing space is also the main library and our spare bedroom.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

What is this "organize" of which you speak?

[petmoosie.livejournal.com]

When we moved here, I paid two college students (my sister and a friend of hers) to alphabetize all the fiction. Then there is a shelf of political science/history, one of science/biology, and one of writing advice/dictionaries/reference.

The foreign language is scattered all over the place. If it is a Roman alphabet, chances are that it's among the fiction by author. If it is Cyrillic, it's likely to be near the Russian dictionaries. Those are the only two alphabets we have.

Computer language stuff and manuals are in a bookshelf in mrmoosie's office. Textbooks that I use to teach live in a backpack. Some dictionaries are so popular, it becomes a matter of who used it last and where did you use it?

So there is a certain level of disaster. Oh, borrowed books are to be returned to the hall closet for return to their owner/library!!!!!!

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

At the house in Lawrence it was three deep wall bookshelf with fiction alpha by author and across the room from that were 3 bookshelves -
1) Hardcover ficiton alpha by author
2)non-fiction unclassified, refrence -
3) Political science text , books, journals
in star's office was computer text, craft books, fanzines
andreas room was GLBT studies, fashion books / mags
guest room was pagan and self help
bedroom was smut and the current dozen to read

In the appmt we have one small shelf with the to read, a bankers box of 'read - goto garage' and the rest are in boxes until we get a house - once in a while we pick a random box and bring it into house, fill the to read stack.