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

[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.