How do you organize your books?

[Aud 1]

I put all the CDs and DVDs into binders a couple of years ago. It really opened up some space.

In my new house the wall on the north side of the living room and dining room has no windows. We plan to put shelves all along there. I priced real library shelving but that's crazy expensive.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Crazy expensive and unnecessary. I think you've got a good idea there.

Seaboe

[Aud 1]

The idea was to get real wood shelving rather than pressboard and I knew the library supply companies. Unless a bidding war happens in the sale of our old house I think we'll settle for Ikea.

[Richard W]

Excellent, I had been thinking of starting a similar thread but really I just wanted an excuse to post pictures of my bookshelves and I couldn't justify it... but since you ask...

I sort my books into fiction and various non-fiction categories. Fiction is arranged alphabetically by author, and then (if I can be bothered) chronologically by publication date within each author. I'm really only strict about date for books in series, though. Those need to be in the right order. Non-fiction categories are a little arbitrary, but they're alphabetical by author within each category.

My biggest bookshelves are in the sitting room. The top four levels are fiction A to I - Abbott to Ibsen. (Actually the first is Tales From The Thousand And One Nights which is anonymous and so has no listed author). Beneath that, the big shelf in the middle is mostly comics and cartoons, with a few maps and atlases and a few books about films. To the left, more cartoons on the upper small shelf, and languages on the one below. To the right, maps above and travel guides below.

The other bookshelf in my sitting room is by the kitchen, and so it has recipe books at the bottom, and my "drink and drugs" section on the top shelf. And a couple of gardening books... no connection! (I don't even have a garden at the moment). Also part of my DVD collection.

In the spare bedroom, these are fiction I to R (John Irving to J K Rowling), with my physics and computing textbooks on the bottom shelf, plus some university notes that I still have. Fiction R to U - the rest of J K Rowling to John Updike. Then I have the outsize books, which are mostly photography and art "coffee table" books.

In my bedroom, the top shelf on the left is fiction V - Z (Vonnegut to Zusak), plus some hardback biographies that won't fit on the shelf below. (Hardbacks mess up my careful plans). Below that, the next shelf and a half is travel / memoir / biography - this is the same category because I can never find a clear line to draw. There's even a bit of history and politics in there, which could go somewhere else. The remaining half shelf, and the one with space on it below that, are "pure" history, then there's popular science, and at the bottom some more outsize books, mostly history.

The small bookshelf in the middle has more popular science on the top shelf - that section got smaller since I decided Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter should go in philosophy, so again there's space for more. The two shelves below that are philosophy, politics and economics. I didn't realise why those went together as a university subject until I tried to decide which of my books were which... There's some religion in there too.

The small one on the right is reference books such as dictionaries, and poetry, with a bit of myth and legend and books about language (rather than phrasebooks and learning language, which is in the sitting room).

By my bed, I have my unsorted "to-read" shelves - this used to be just a "to-read" pile, but I have enough space to put it on a proper shelf, which is brilliant. There's also a dictionary and some crossword books so I can do crosswords in bed without having to get up. Not sure why I've got travel guide books on there - I should move them really. The bottom shelf is various notebooks and diaries, mostly from trips I've taken in the past.

Finally, out in the hall there's a shelf of the kind of nonsense books that I could probably get rid of - some of us will remember the days before the internet when people had to print urban legends and dubious facts in books to distribute them, and these books somehow accumulated in the same way that forwarded emails do. That's what most of the ones on top are, so rather than get rid of them I thought I'd put them next to the bathroom so that guests could read them on the lavatory or something. (At least I didn't put them actually in the bathroom). This is also close to the front door, so I've put my walking maps on there, and a couple of bird books and tree guides in case I want to take them with me on a hike. I doubt "Birds of Nepal" will be much use in Buckinghamshire but that's where it seemed to fit. The bottom shelf is more overflow from my DVD collection.

I should really learn the dewey decimal system or something, but that probably wouldn't help to resolve the ambiguities... But mostly I'm just happy that I have my books out of storage, and that my new flat is more than big enough to fit them all in!

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Lainie

"Organizing" books by color baffles me.

Organizing people that way baffles me as well.

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by Richard W

That's what most of the ones on top are, so rather than get rid of them I thought I'd put them next to the bathroom so that guests could read them on the lavatory or something. (At least I didn't put them actually in the bathroom).

You seem to be saying there's something wrong with that.... Yes, i have a bookshelf in the bathroom.


Aud: Instead of binders, I have 4 Kasset boxes from IKEA that hold all my CDs & DVDs.

[Dropbear]

Originally Posted by snopes

Organizing people that way (by color) baffles me as well.

Plus you have to keep moving people about according to the season or the strength of their tanning spray.

Dropbear

[Aud 1]

The orange ones always hate how they are cataloged.

[rhiandmoi]

Is there a place to look up the dds call numbers for individual books online? Because now I want to do this.

[Aud 1]

My books are cataloged in LibraryThing and I can have it display Dewey call numbers. This can be copied into Excel and turned into stickers.

Other than in a library's online catalog I'm not sure where else to look

[Der Induktionator]

We use Delicious Library (Mac). It has a lot more features than we actually use, like automatic dewey decimal lookup.

Physically, last year an Ikea opened just a couple km away, so among other things we filled the guest room with Billy shelves. We didn't get the ladder though.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Richard's shelves are beautiful but there's so much wasted space! I have lots and lots of books, even after the purges of the past few years. I have to make the most of every available inch, so most of my current bookshelves I've built. Individual paperback shelves are only 5" deep and 8" tall. You can't buy bookshelves in those dimensions (Billy shelves are something like 12" high and 10" deep).

Besta from IKEA used to have a case that was only about 8" deep and I bought some of those. The are better looking than Billy with less wasted space. However, I can't seem to find a picture online of the shallow ones (they also have some 14" deep).

Seaboe

[Aud 1]

DH has some shelves from before we were married. As we were moving them around I commented about how sturdy they seemed and he said they were from Ikea. This surprised me because there is no store anywhere near us. He got them somewhere in town that carried some Ikea products. They appear to be Billy bookcases and can be ordered online now.
Seaboe, there are shelves meant for DVDs that would work for paperbacks.

The space thing is one concern I have with putting everything in alpha order (fiction) and Dewey (non-fiction) - all the sizes will be mixed together. Before, I'd put the bigger books to the sides of an individual shelf and the smaller books in the middle.

[Lainie]

Yup, my CD/DVD shelves would be perfect for paperbacks, except maybe trade paperbacks.

Like Ganzfeld, I don't keep much of a permanent library. I am just starting to buy nonfiction books that it's not convenient to read within a reasonable library borrowing time. Once I read them I decide whether to keep them or not.

Originally Posted by Spam & Cookies-mmm

Organizing by color makes your room look "decorated" I suppose.

That's what bugged me about the article I saw that suggested it -- it so clearly emphasized the appearance of the books over the contents, which is just alien to me.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Originally Posted by Aud 1

Seaboe, there are shelves meant for DVDs that would work for paperbacks.

It's tricky. The Besta shelves are supposed to be part of an entertainment/storage center and were probably intended to hold other things than books. I might go down to our local IKEA and see if they still have the shallow ones. I'm pretty sure I could find a use for them. DVD/CD shelves with sufficiently adjustable shelves do work for book cases, but... They're generally not that tall (my largest unit is only about 4').

I find bookshelves easy to build. I have pipe clamps, wood chisels and a good drill. I can make them the height I want, they come out relatively lightweight and plenty sturdy enough. Not as cheap as IKEA, but a lot cheaper then library shelving or custom built.

Seaboe

[Lainie]

Yes, as cabinetmaking/woodworking goes, bookshelves are pretty basic. They're essentially boxes.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Seaboe Muffinchucker

Richard's shelves are beautiful but there's so much wasted space!

That's not wasted space, it's spare capacity!

(Most of them are standard flat packs, but the big one in the sitting room is one that I had made to my own specifications to fit my house in Ipswich. It's not coincidence that the Times Atlas to the left of the bottom middle shelf fits exactly in both height and depth. The shelves also fit pretty well in my new flat, which is good. Originally I wanted them in the spare room, but it's physically impossible to fit them down the corridor and through the door, so they had to come over the balcony into my sitting room, and stay there. Luckily they look much better where they are than they would have where I was going to put them, so it all worked out...)

[rhiandmoi]

Originally Posted by Aud 1

My books are cataloged in LibraryThing and I can have it display Dewey call numbers. This can be copied into Excel and turned into stickers.

Other than in a library's online catalog I'm not sure where else to look

I became obsessed with this, and through exhausting googling I found out that the call numbers are often included with the information under the ISBN and LOC information. So, for all my modern books it's already there. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay

[Dasla]

I am thinking of taking advantage of the shocking wether and sorting my bookshelves out. I my books are, roughly, sorted by author for fiction and well the non-fiction aren't really sorted at all. Not very good for a library assistant I know.

Well all the cook books are together. I would like to get all my science text books together and all my library text books together. Size might be a problem. And I need more shelves, or I need to get rid of more books.

What is this "library thing" you speak of?

[Dasla]

Originally Posted by rhiandmoi

I became obsessed with this, and through exhausting googling I found out that the call numbers are often included with the information under the ISBN and LOC information. So, for all my modern books it's already there. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay

Yes but they aren't always included, sometimes it just says (cateloging information available from...) When we first started doing cateloguing at TAFE the teacher pointed that out us. Most students were suprised but I had all ready noticed that. Don't know if that makes me a geek or just destined to work in libraries.

I liked cateloguing unlike most students but I don't know if I would go as far as labeling my own books. Maybe as practise if I ever get furthor along in cateloguing. I still have all my text and would have the online stuff available at work.