mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
For someone with a degree in Library Science, I’m really bad at organizing a home library. Until yesterday I only owned two bookshelves (one of them half-sized), but had perfected the art of book-stacking (and book-cramming — placing more volumes above the regular row of books…), so each shelf holds twice its normal complement of books.
So yesterday I bought a new set of bookshelves — they’re the “LACK” series from IKEA. I’m faced with a new challenge: how to organize all these books? Looking around the web, there seem to be a few major options — but I’m wondering how you have dealt with this challenge?
Here are the options I’m currently considering:
Library Software
Delicious Library (a Mac application) can easily import my smallish library, including CDs and DVDs. It scans barcodes using my computer’s built-in camera and looks them up on Amazon, retrieving cover art and details about the item. This app also helps me lend items to friends, including setting “due dates” and tracking who has not returned something. Very nice, and $40 (for Mac only, screenshot above).
LibraryThing is a web application that catalogs your books online, incorporating some social networking features — like you can look up former flosser (now prominent novelist) John Green’s author page and even see his personal library contents. It’s free for people with up to 200 books, and cheap ($25 for a lifetime membership) after that. My friend Lyza switched from Delicious Library to LibraryThing when her library grew too large to practically manage with the desktop application…so LibraryThing looks like a very scalable option.
Shelving Methods
There are various ways to shelve books — you can do it with Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress Classification…but both of these are pretty heavy for a personal collection.
The aforementioned John Green organizes his home library using an idiosyncratic method derived from both broad and narrow categorizations of his collection. Check out this complete tour with sections including “First Editions of Books About Conjoined Twins.”
So let’s hear it: how do you organize your home library? I’d love tips as I start assembling my new shelves and uncramming the old ones!
Comments (42)
Comment
I use librarything to organize my home library and I’ve been using that for years. In reference to shelving methods, I organize my books by topic so cooking books are in the same area and poker books are in the same area.
I also have a bookshlef in my bedroom just for naughty books(sex and the like)-that way they’re handy if me and my hubby need some inspiration.
posted by Tamara on 12-17-2007 at 10:03 am
Surely I’m not the only person with a bookshelf in the bathroom (where, let’s face it, we all do a lot of reading). Anyway, I’ve found this to be the ideal place to put all of my mental_floss books.
posted by eamwkc on 12-17-2007 at 10:07 am
I’m a librarything junkie. Although the system isn’t perfect, they are constantly seeking improvements and it just gets better and better. It is not a static application that has to wait for the newest version to come out to add features, which part of what makes it awesome!
Or books are organized by topic first and space available second, hopefully alphabetically if it possible.
posted by John(GraspingfortheWind) on 12-17-2007 at 10:16 am
I used Delicious Library for a few months, but the application seemed buggy and slow (this was about a year and a half ago). I then switched to DVDpedia and havent looked anywhere else since then.
posted by Anthony on 12-17-2007 at 10:26 am
I’m a librarian too, and my shelves are a mess!! I loosely have the cookbooks together, the novels together, the Reference stuff in my office, but that’s about it. No LibraryThing or other database, since I get most of my reading from the public library anyway . . .
posted by Julie on 12-17-2007 at 10:30 am
My experience with Delicious Library was similar to Anthony’s. I got all my books into the thing (mostly by ISBN number as I don’t have a scanner!) I was starting to get my DVDs in and the thing crapped out on me. For some reason I never went back and reentered all that information. It works well when it work,s but they need to get an exterminator.
posted by Erik N. on 12-17-2007 at 10:32 am
I don’t keep my books
up online, but I think I might now. hehehe.
I only have one shelving unit with to small shelves on it for my multitude of books, and so I do the best I can, but generally I seperate my hard covers from my soft because of space, (and a little OCD). I seperate the categories; my classics, sci-fi, “umms”, and the touchy-feely ones. Yeah, my own categaories. hahaha.
Then I alphabetize by last name of the authors. …When there are co-authors I deliberate forever and constantly switch back and forth before finally going with which one looks better. hahaha.
Btw I am typing (the keyboard is on the table) while laying on a makeshift bench at school. I am very proud of my angrey skills at typing decently enough to be understood!!
posted by ell;;w-k;k on 12-17-2007 at 10:36 am
I say keep it simple.
*A shelf in the kitchen for cookbooks.
*The nicest bookshelf gets the reference books (which are generally more expensive)
*The loose groupings from there.
*The kids have two book shelves. The bottom most shelves was more traditionally the younger books, and the higher shelves where the nicer books. But they are older now, so they are loosly organized by topic now.
(Big hint though – never store the books in the kid’s room. They tend to end up in the toy box). Now that the boys are older – they have started personal collections. But when they were younger, only a couple books at a time in their room – the book shelves were in the living room.
posted by Elizabeth on 12-17-2007 at 10:40 am
My classification system is more about me than the books themselves. After classifying them into major categories — children’s books on one shelf; adult books on the other — the books are organized by categories like “Grad school” “Undergrad” “Books I might never bother to read” “Books I’ve never read, but I really, honestly plan to” and “Favorites.” Of course, once you establish a system like this, it completely goes out the window with oversized books, which are impossible to group in any meaningful way, except that the large format all goes on the bottom shelf, which is 4 inches taller than any of the others.
It’d be impossible for anyone else to find anything in my collection, but I can usually put my fingers on what I’m looking for. Of course, each shelf is stacked two deep, which makes it a bit of a challenge.
posted by Kristen on 12-17-2007 at 10:49 am
I’ve got 2 full size ikea bookcases (the billy system) and two half sized ones full to the point of over flowing. I also recently inherited my grandmother’s library when she passed away, so my books have now doubled.
I lump my books into general themes such as:
books about people/biography
books about things/history
books about places/geography (there are a lot of these)
fiction
classics/poetry
series/sets/collections
cookbooks
stuff I don’t know where to put
That’s usually enough. I keep my fiction in a separate bookcase, same with my geography and old text books. Everything else is organized enough for me to usually find what I want relativly fast.
posted by Jenny on 12-17-2007 at 10:52 am
I use several of the above ways. My books are grouped by genre–some of my own making (children’s, post-colonial, books on writing, etc)–then those groups are organized to what needs to “be seen” and what I most read. The books I most read go in the set of shelves in my bedroom, since I like to read before bed, or if I wake up and can’t get back to sleep again. The “to be seen books” like books on writing or the classics that make me look smart (haha) go on the shelves in my living room. And being a bookworm . . . I always have several books lying around waiting to be read, in the middle of being read, or just finished being read. I don’t feel quite right if all my books are on the shelf at the same time.
posted by nutmeag on 12-17-2007 at 10:58 am
I’m deffinitely not organized enough to use an application to manage my books.
I group reference books, and non-fiction books into religious, secular, and biographical books and the remaining fiction works by genre and author (or series). IE the Terry Pratchett books are next to the Doug Adams books and the Agatha Christie books rest beside Nancy Drew ;) I use the same method for sorting my movies.
posted by Ashley on 12-17-2007 at 10:59 am
Ooh, what a delicious subject!
My everyday library is housed in a barrister bookcase and organized alphabetically in alphabetically arranged categories. There are anthologies, fiction, humour, non-fiction (biographical, historical, literary, ideas and reference, and travel), plays (though I’m currently adding a shelf above the radiator – high tech, I know – to which I will transfer The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Volumes 1 to 8, for individual worship), screenplays, and poetry.
I’ve held on to my favourite youth fiction, including both copies of Kit Pearson’s Guests of War Trilogy, and old textbooks that I’ll probably never look at again (the kind a Clean Sweep crew would insist I donate or toss), but I’ve kept anyway because they add an interesting dimension to their shelf.
But books are never limited to shelves. I have a pile of books on my nightstand, waiting to be read; I have books lined up on my desk, waiting to be reviewed; I have blocks of Reader’s Digest Condensed books that my great grandmother gave to me in downsizing; a collection of World War II non-fiction amassed from various antique book shops; a neat little arrangement on my dresser consisting of one seventh of the Yale Shakespeare Series and three miniature silver vases; a book a canonized kinsman wrote all the way back in Ireland that somehow made it over here without its companions (there were four), propping up a picture of my grandfather, through whom we are related.
Then there are the beautiful books, the ones my mother keeps in her library until I have a proper place to put them. These are the books my grandfather gave to me, the Oxford Library of the World’s Great Books and the Harvard Classics Collector’s Edition; without them, my mother won’t have a library.
And to think, all these years I’ve been cataloguing them in a spreadsheet.
posted by K. on 12-17-2007 at 11:06 am
Size.
I feel a little primitive.
posted by Aviva on 12-17-2007 at 11:08 am
Although I have a lot of books, I don’t think my collection could be broken down into categories. If I could it would go like this: Stephen King books, Harry Potter books (and supplements), textbooks /required reading/reference books from college that make me look smart, cookbooks, and gifts from people I plan never to read, but keep out to be polite.
posted by bas on 12-17-2007 at 11:17 am
I’ve never been one to buy books, I have always relied on the library.
However, I keep track of the books I have read on shelfari.com. It’s free and you can read other people’s comments about books and join bookclubs. I know I do not have near all the books I have read but it’s a start.
posted by RDW on 12-17-2007 at 11:28 am
My books are alphabetical by author- almost entirely.
Reference books are stored together – and not in any order.
Anthologies are grouped together on a seperate shelf by title.
Cookery books are in the kitchen and a matching set of general fiction titles are on the shelves in the hall cause they look better than the mixed bag of books everywhere else.
But I need to get them all on library thing soon.
posted by Kate on 12-17-2007 at 11:40 am
I just recently organized my books by colour. I find it very soothing. You’d be suprised how may books are beige!
posted by sarah on 12-17-2007 at 11:45 am
ok this will sound terrible but my books are arranged purely by aesthetics. I vary the size and type of book (hard covers, magazines, paperbacks) and the theme. I like looking through my bookshelves and seeing Keats poetry next to a biochemistry textbook or an Islamic art book shelved beside a Bible commentary and the Wizard of Oz. It sometimes takes longer to find things but i get a lot of offshoot ideas from the hunt. This is fun for all my books except my cook books which are in the kitchen separated roughly into baking and cooking.
posted by tex on 12-17-2007 at 11:46 am
Each bookshelf is for a specific genre, based on our needs – one for mysteries, one for sci fi/fantasy, etc. Within each bookshelf they are alphabetized by author.
Of course, once the kids were born bookshelf organization sort of fell apart.
posted by Jenny on 12-17-2007 at 11:51 am
There’s a Visual Bookshelf application on Facebook; I kind of like using that because, not only can you put in there what books you currently have on your (real) bookshelf, you can set up a “Wanted List” bookshelf, of books you haven’t read yet but want to. My list is HUGE.
Growing up, my mom’s library arranging skills used to really bother me. Not that books were out of order or in piles, but she had all of the spines lined up on one line, instead of pushing all the books to the back of the shelf. She liked the way it looked when no one book was back further than another. I liked pushing them all back just to piss her off.
posted by Molly W. on 12-17-2007 at 11:52 am
I generally shelve by author for fiction and subject for nonfiction. I’ve had several book ‘purges’ where less read books go up to the garage or possibly given away – my main problem is that my softcover books tend to fall apart from being read too much.
posted by Katherine on 12-17-2007 at 12:35 pm
Someday I will have a big beautiful home library (when I have a house instead of a small NYC apartment) but for now I have 4 big IKEA bookcases that are crammed with books, and many books in piles around the apartment. I never have any trouble finding things, and they are loosely organized (poetry, fiction trade paperbacks, kid’s lit, kid’s picture books, signed books, to read, travel, favorites, etc).
I have tried Library Thing but did not like it enough to pay for it. I also tried Shelfari but haven’t really gotten into it.
For now I’m using Google Books, but only to log books as I read them (including library books), not logging everything I own. (I chart everything I own on a Google spreadsheet.) I love Google Books because I can tag things, and the tags display on the left side. So I can easily sort by a variety of tags: fiction, own, read, read in 2007, favorites, YA lit, etc…
posted by Emily on 12-17-2007 at 12:43 pm
I worked at Waldenbooks in college and so my books at home (in my beautiful loft built in bookcase with cubby-holes) tended to be organized the way theirs were. I separated fiction from non and organized the fiction by author and the non fiction by subject and size: travel, cooking, religion, writing, craft, etc. Sometimes one subject naturally blended into another (travel/geography, cooking/housekeeping). Now however, two years into my marriage I’m still trying to get our blended books organized.
I’ve never used any computer book organizing programs; however, one tool I have discovered is half.com (and a few other online book sellers). Books are wonderful. I’d rather have bookshelves than any other furniture. Our date nights are spent at Borders and our romantic evenings are spent reading to each other, but books can become clutter. I’ve noticed that I rarely re-read any but the BEST fiction (and I go through a few books a week), so I’d rather pick up books at the library than bookstore. I also am prone to buy wonderful reference books on the bargain table that are still unopened years later. So, my goal for the New Year is to organize my books, weed out the books that others would enjoy more than I or that might earn a few dollars online. I will attempt to use ALL of my cookbooks and get rid of the un-useful ones. I will look at the self-help books and do the same. Text books are the real kicker though, we sold our used text books online for $30-$120 at discounts to other appreciative students! They are the best motivation not to procrastinate and get rid of those you’ll never use as soon as possible. So, a few bookshelves will be reserved for books waiting to be sold online. And just think, one book you really don’t care about may be JUST what someone else has been looking for. You can bring book joy to others!
posted by Andrea on 12-17-2007 at 1:02 pm
To add to the discussion, how do folks organize their mass market paperbacks? I have a large collection in great condition, but am having to store them horizontal stacked on top of each other to save space.
Any good bookshelves that specialize in that sort of book?
posted by John(GraspingfortheWind) on 12-17-2007 at 1:28 pm
did not see this recommendation in the comments –
Collectorz.com has a set of products, one for movies, one for books, one for music, one for comix….
They all inter-relate, and have a barcode feature with Collectorz.com own barcode reader.
I’ve been using MOVIE COLLECTOR for years and just love it — It scans not only Amazon, but IMDB and many other databases for movie info. Prints labels, reports, etc.
The book collector has the same feature and uses the ISBN number for Library of Congress info!
posted by WizardBoy on 12-17-2007 at 1:52 pm
For those who do not have mac — try this FREE application — looks just like the mac one, but is for PCs (yeah!) — and ANY webcam works for scanning the barcode.
http://www.getlibra.com/
posted by WizardBoy on 12-17-2007 at 1:59 pm
What a great topic!
I had the joy of setting up the library of books when my roommate and I moved together. There is the travel set of shelves. Cooking in the kitchen. A poetry shelf, a fantasy and myth section, cherished children’s books. There is a section that is not travel, but the titles all reference a place. My favorite is the idiosyncratic shelf: Good Omens lives there along with Jasper Fford and Warren Ellis. The rest are by author and asthetics.
posted by Gina on 12-17-2007 at 2:21 pm
for a long time, i had everything arranged by my own complicated system. Fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks and paperbacks. fiction and paperbacks (almost all fiction) arranged by sf, fantasy, mystery, romance, classic, etc and by author within those groups. there were the weird things: women’s lit, modern lit, stephen king, dean koontz, odd stuff, stories narrated by animals, whatever. non-fiction by history, biography, sciences, animals, writing, whatever.
then there were too many books. so it’s still fiction (by alpha author only), non-fiction (a bastardized form of the dewey decimal), and paperbacks (by alpha author only). Cookbooks are in the dining room and books that are in transition (just bought, going to be read, in the process of reading, finished reading) are on a shelf in my room and in a very untidy stack on the nightstand.
when it was organized by my system, i knew every book and where it was and when one was out of place. i never bought a book a second time by mistake. not so much anymore.
posted by modulegirl on 12-17-2007 at 2:30 pm
I organize my books by color. Since I live in New York and have limited space, I only allow myself to keep what fits on one Ikea Lack bookcase. I have a very good visual memory, so almost always know the spine color of the book I’m looking for. And since even one bookcase takes up a fair bit of real estate in my small apartment, arranging by color provides some extra visual impact.
posted by Stephanie on 12-17-2007 at 2:32 pm
i have 4 shelves on a built-in bookcase. 2 shelves are dedicated to my old yearbooks and childrens books. the other 2 are dedicated to adult books. i put books i enjoy and am likely to read again on the lower adult shelf. i try to keep all books by a single author together, but there is no particular order.
posted by tami on 12-17-2007 at 4:17 pm
Mine are organized in non-fiction and fiction, alphabetical order in the living room. Up in the computer room is reference books and old school textbooks that we didn’t want to sell back thrown in a very haphazard way. I guess I don’t care about them being pretty because nobody sees them.
posted by Tricia on 12-17-2007 at 4:58 pm
That’s alphabetical by author. That way my books in a series (sword of truth, harry potter, lord of the rings, etc) all get put together.
posted by Tricia on 12-17-2007 at 4:59 pm
I have two tall shelves, not counting DVD’s and CD’s, my books are roughly D.D.S. However, once I paid my cousin to do some cleaning. She decided my books needed to be arranged by size! It took me over a week to fix them.
posted by gus on 12-17-2007 at 5:06 pm
Reference books together by type. Collectors edition mags in a magazine rack (plastic boxlike thing that keeps them standing up on a shelf). Cookbooks in the kitchen. Fiction together by author (I have an extensive Nora Roberts collection, sorted by release date, with sets together).
It all sounds very obsessive until you realize that this is all in theory, and the books are as likely to be anywhere as they are to be in-line on the shelf.
For online cataloging, I like LibraryThing.
posted by boliyou on 12-17-2007 at 6:53 pm
8,000 hardcover books to take care of has been my challenge of the year. I tore out a perfectly good bedroom and started building shelves.
Prior to that only a 1,000 or so were displayed. 17th,18th and 1800-1856 are behind glass doors in a very large case. Leather and silk bindings, along with some modern first editions are in a matching case.
The front room has one wall full of those overly-ornate Victorian bindings that were mass printed in the late 1800s. These are easy to arrange by color and look quite nice.
Sets of books fill cases wherever I can jam one, reference, art, classics, anthologies, etc.
Every flat spot in the house is occupied by wildly-varied esoteric titles that make for good conversation.
I have never found good shelving for paperbacks; they were ill-fitting or unattractive. I ended up making my own, a 7′ tall by 3′ wide and 8″ deep section will hold 300-400 titles (but weighs about 300lbs empty).
abe.com has free a inventory software named Homebase that is designed for professional booksellers but is great for personal use as well. I have not used it for quite some time (I gave up the quest for accurate inventory long ago) but it was quite handy. I see the new version has more options, including want lists and contact manager.
Less than 10% of my books have an ISBN, so the scanning features are not very useful.
Things I have learned the hard way:
Sunlight fades and greatly speeds the structural deterioration of a book – Glass magnifies sunlight.
High levels of Humidity are not your friends, or at least not a friend to your books.
The age of a book is a greatly misleading indicator of the value/worth of a book.
A permabound paperback which has wrinkles and creases and loose bindings can sometimes be restored to like-new condtion by placing them in the microwave for X amount of seconds. I do not recall exactly what = X, but I do remember that X+1 will reduce the entire thing to ruin.
posted by ron on 12-17-2007 at 7:30 pm
I have about 8,000, grouped roughly into fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Right now I have a solid classification system only for the poetry – roughly chronological. The rest go wherever there’s space, with the ones I need to read, either new or repeat, being easiest to get to. (My CDs and DVDs, however, are so well organized that it balances out.)
posted by Taylor on 12-17-2007 at 9:43 pm
I just went through this dilemma myself when I moved into a new apartment. I have a built in bookshelf in the living room (one of the major selling points of the place)where I store a random assortment of hardcover books on one shelf and the other shelves have reference books and coffee table/photography books arranged by size (to the amusement of my sister).
My other books are grouped in my own weird little system: poetry together in no particular order, religious books by author, books from school/textbooks by author – then all other books are by author and split onto different shelves depending on whether they are borrowed, unread or already read.
Actually, my bookshelves are really the only thing in the apartment that is settled yet – boxes might be covering most of the floor, but the books are in order!
I have an Excel spreadsheet of all my books by author, title, whether I have read it yet and notes, with separate tabs for borrowed books and loaned books. I actually had no idea there were computer programs for this, and I usually don’t tell people about my spreadsheet because it seems a little OCD. It’s nice to know I’m in good company here!
posted by Nicole on 12-17-2007 at 11:36 pm
I like this idea on flicker.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos/27538777/
posted by t.c. on 12-18-2007 at 7:52 pm
I am using Bookpedia which I tried for free off the download page at .mac. I bought it ($29.) when I entered my 30th book and they informed me that I had exceeded the trial. I have had no trouble and have been sent upgrades and bug fixes by the company which notifies me of their availability.
I have about 4000 books – from picture books (uncataloged est. 400) to Biographies (a little more than 300 this week). Posters, CD’s DVD’s, puzzles, videos and science equipment. Additionally this is opened up for loan to other homeschoolers in our area. I homeschool and this is literally our “school library.” So I also utilize the “borrow”mode and the scan. My only wish would be if the company would invent a scan/label system for all the books I have that do not have scannable UPC’s.
The organization was decided to be public library-ish with tweaks for home school needs (ex. fiction which might be used to teach the Civil War period in categorized with the non-fiction for the same use.
I’ve got shelves of all kinds and a loft dedicated to the library.
posted by Lauri on 5-20-2008 at 1:43 pm
I don’t have a comment. I have a question. How would you classify a volume of “Reader’s Digest Today’s Best Nonfiction” by the Dewey Decimal System? That is how I am trying to set up my home library – finally with some sort of organization. If anyone sees this, could they please answer me? Thanks.
posted by Candy on 8-9-2008 at 9:25 am
@Candy,
I’m not really an expert…but I’d place this volume in 810, or more specifically 814. 800 is Literature, 810 is American literature written in English, and 814 is for Essays.
If you feel like the work is less a series of Essays than it is ‘General Information’ (ie how-to or other purely informative nonfiction) you might place it in 000 (Information and general works)…possibly 080 (General collections) or more specifically 081 (General collections in English).
Hope this helps!
posted by Chris Higgins on 8-9-2008 at 5:01 pm