How do you organize your library?

[Rising Phoenix]

I have collected such a giant assortment of books over the years, my ocd nature wants me to find a way to keep them all in order and easy to find. I have plenty of shelves, so they are not just piled up everywhere?

What do you think?

by subject
alphabetical by author
or by title

[Kali]

1. by subject

with a few exceptions for size (which MY ocd has trouble with!)

[enigmatic]

2. By subject

Although there are certain authors (Bukowski, Kerouac, Harry Crews) that have their own sections by themselves.

I used to have as many books as you but moving a number of times throught the years made it impossible to keep many except for books I didn't want to give up under any cercumstances. Now that we've moved into a pretty big house my plan is to haunt thrift stores/used book stores to get my library built up again.

Good luck!

[seabeyond]

3. alphabetical... by author. they are all mine. i know them all. i go to last name. nt

[seabeyond]

5. gotta kinda change answer. i have an area just for the fiction. then i have other shelves, other

places in house and it is all by subject. cant inagine mixing the subjects

[Doc_Technical]

4. Nietzsche says,

"Out of chaos, comes order."
But I leave it to Hap Hazzard.

[arcadian]

6. By subject

and don't for get to dust them from time to time. :hi:

[csziggy]

7. By subject and size - solely in an effort to optimize shelf space

You'd think someone with a library science degree could do better, but this makes sense for me and lets me find what I am looking for pretty quickly. The one area that is alphabetized is the fiction section, but it is divided into paperbacks & trade paperbacks (the larger ones) and hardbacks. We had shelves made for our library when we built the house and one 'bank' of shelves is just the depth and height for paperbacks. The rest of the shelves are 9.5 inches deep with adjustable shelves; each section is about 30 inches wide and extending floor to ceiling.

I have four of those 30" sections for fiction paperbacks, one for the larger fiction books and books about fiction and movies. One section each of books about horses, needlework, science, history/politics, cooking/gardening/home repair, computer/software, genealogy, and hubby has his RPG and D&D section. In each section, the books are sorted by sub-category to make it even easier to find the particular book on a particular subject.

The library shelves extend out like a real library:
|_||_||_| (They are really two units deep but the formatting will not let me get the spacing correct.)

At the end of each of the back to back shelves, we have smaller shelves dedicated to field guides on birds, animals, etc. and to reference books and manuals. The shelves in the 'dead ends' are paperback sized and hold books related to the subjects on either side of that bay. The oversized and art books go in the larger shelves in the family room.

I have the books and information to catalog my books by either the Dewey Decimal or the Library of Congress Systems but it really does not seem worth it. My library is not quite big enough to justify the time it would take. Plus, I do not want to deface the books by attaching cataloging labels on the spines.

[XemaSab]

8. How many field guides do you have?

I have dozens. :D

[Rising Phoenix]

11. only a couple

[csziggy]

16. About seven dozen

Including the one signed by Roger Tory Peterson. Not all are on birds, but most of them are. Several are duplicates or various editions of the same one. The two volume set of tomes on the birds of Minnesota illustrated by hubby's grandfather is in the glass front shelves with the other antique, rare and valuable books, BTW.

I was looking at the bird group last night - did anything ever come of that bird TV show you posted about?

[XemaSab]

17. I haven't heard anything about it

:shrug:

[csziggy]

19. This year I would have watched a birding show since the live one hadn't started

Between my shoulder and other health issues, I have been unable to get out much and the birds had not started coming to the bird baths at the new house. And of course, I could not get feeders up because of the blasted shoulder.

We did have some good sightings - the Mississippi kites that hung around most of the summer, the swallow tailed kites that soared over head at irregular intervals. The bald eagle that competed for the fox carcass fifty feet from the front door, the lone immature white ibis that tried to hang out with the crows and the wild turkeys, and the young vulture I helped to rescue from hypothermia, parasites and starvation.

I got the feeders up last week and the warblers and sparrows are competing with the cardinals, blue jays, titmice and chickadees. An Eastern Phoebe has taken over the bug patrol duty from the Great Crested Flycatcher. And the bluebird clan just keeps adding members.

I want to move the bird baths closer to the library window but we need to move some plants there for them to "stand in line" for their turns. And I will put up another pole for feeders in that same area to get the birds to come closer to the house. Not that they need encouragement - the wrens was to build nests above the windows and the house finches want to build theirs in the porch fans!

I am disappointed that the woodpeckers are not coming to the new house - we had sapsuckers, pileated, hairy and red bellied woodpeckers that would hang out in the trees right outside the window. But they do not like the variety of oak that is outside this house where I get the best view. And I have not seen the black and white nuthatches at all this year, though they could still be over at the old house. It is amazing how different 300 feet can make in a microhabitat!

[Rising Phoenix]

10. thanks everyone

once I get a burst of constructive energy, and stop sneezing from what ever is bothering my allergies today, I plan to empty all the shelves dust, and will probably follow the advice of arranging by subject matter and size. I have lots of huge art books, my bottom shelve of the largest case holds those, but they are all mixed, feminist, contemporary, history. I also have some books that are too heavy for that shelve and some coffee table type art books that I like to pile up, about three or four of them horizontally on my most accessible and visible shelf. OCD can be a bitch, but I know where EVERYTHING is and it is clean and when their is chaos all around, my room is an oasis of order, beauty, pleasant smells, and luxury.

[XemaSab]

9. Subject, then either alphabetical or region

:shrug:

[Captain Hilts]

12. Subject. FDR/ER/Ickes/ NewDeal/RussianEcon/ USN/Submarines/ Film/Tracy/hepburn...etc.

[mitchum]

13. By hair color

[fizzgig]

14. i do it by genre, then author within each genre

the bigger books, however, get relegated to the bottom shelf because that's where they fit

[unpossibles]

15. by subject matter, sometimes by author name, sometimes by ...size

sorry to all the librarians out there.

[csziggy]

18. The National Library of Peru used to sort books by the color of the binding

Then by size. That was done by librarians. :wtf:

[Duer 157099]

21. I tried that once

Because I found that most times I would remember the color of the book more than anything else.

However, the next time I reorganized, I went by subject and size, with all standard sized paperbacks being grouped separately, by subject.

I love books but the size variations just complicates things so much.

[csziggy]

24. Yes, that is why I have special paperback book size shelves

At the end of each run of regular sized shelving.

Standard 1x4" dimensional lumber is actually deep enough for regular paperbacks, 1x6" gives a little space between the edge of the shelf and the book backs. The 1x4" boards tends to warp, sag and twist more than 1x6" so we went with the wider boards in this house.

1x10" lumber is good for 90% of all other books, though not deep enough for notebooks, photo albums or scrapbooks. We have two shelves made from unmilled 2x12" lumber that are deep enough for all but the widest oversized books, but those are the ones in the family room. I do wish I had made one shelf in the library for the notebooks and such, but if they get in the way, I can put them in the family room.

[Capn Sunshine]

20. Dewey Decimal system

it's what libraries use
Me, I prefer size and color :)

[Chan790]

22. Mine are boxed by subject and rarity.

Many are in plastic sleeves. I collect rare books.

Of you mean the one's I actually read? They're piled under the bed, one big messy pile.

[Deep13]

23. I just explain to the books the benefits of being in a union.

[spinbaby]

25. Subject

Use a method that makes sense to you. My major groupings are science, children's books, home and garden, science fiction, historical fiction, mysteries, general fiction, classic literature, Disney, and Japanese language.

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. Stelae by empire, scrolls by scribe's name, codices by binder's name.

Except for illuminated manuscripts, which are arranged by illuminator.

Of course, I refuse to collect anything done after that society-destroying criminal (and trust me, I knew him) Gutenberg.

Typesetting and mass-printing.

Pfagh!

That was the beginning of the end, I'll tell you that.

I argued strongly against papyrus as well, but obviously lost that argument. Many heated arguments with Narmer, I'll tell you that.

Seriously, what is it with people and throwing tradition to the wind?

[Bertha Venation]

27. Organize?

:rofl:

Haphazardly, darlin', haphazardly.

[SteppingRazor]

28. I have separated my nonfiction and fiction onto separate bookcases.

From there, I group one author's works together, but I don't bother with alphabetical because I'm constantly adding more books or getting rid of old ones. Within the bookcases, I try to group relatively by subject, so that all my "how-to" books are together, all my biographies are together, all my sci-fi/fantasy are together, all my classics are together, etc.

[pokerfan]

29. Dewey Decimal

I'm serious. I figured, why reinvent the wheel?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification">Dewey Decimal Classification

I also use Dewey to organize my bookmarks.

[Pendrench]

30. Are you familiar with Librarything.com?

I know that you were talking about organizing your books on shelves, but this is a great way to keep track of them online: http://www.librarything.com/

Tim

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WinkyDink]

32. Subject, THEN alpha by author, if fiction; chrono, if history; etc.

[surrealAmerican]

33. By age.

The books you've owned the longest in one place. The books you've just finished somewhere else. That way when you're looking for a book, you only need to remember when you first read it.

[mzteris]

34. if you have plenty of bookshelves

then - divide them by category on a particular section of the bookshelves - and then by author (unless you remember titles better than authors).

[Rising Phoenix]

35. who had something so vile to say about organizing books that it got deleted

lighten up people....... ::eyes:

I decided I like my chaos, when I have to go looking for a book, I tend to rediscover books I haven't read in awhile and all of a sudden it is like being back with an old friend. Or I'll flip through a book and see what I underlined and it is fascinating to me what I found urgent and special at the time I first read it.

I will dust them.....and my very newest books, the 20 or so I got this month are all going in the same area, as they are unread.

:loveya:

thanks for all the responses.