Goofy Project

[vince]

Trying to sort out my books (in my case, perhaps 600). Finding it hard to come up with classifications, I'm considering adopting the Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress System since that relieves me of having to classify them myself.

Goofy or not?

 

[Kat0121]

Not if it that's what works for you. That's what matters. Now you just need a card catalog.

 

[Elphaba09]

Nope. Not if it works for you. One wall in our game room is a built-in bookshelf and we have two built-ins upstairs. My husband and I have a couple of systems working together. We have his books on certain shelves downstairs in alphabetical order by author. From there, his are arranged by series order and/or publication date, depending on if it is part of a series or not. He also separates fiction and nonfiction. Mine books that are downstairs are separated into two sections because of how short I am. The books I would use less often are on the highest shelves that we need a ladder to reach. I separate the books by how I use them since I do a lot of writing involving literary analysis. For example, I have a section on fairy tales and folklore. In that section, you will find fiction and nonfiction analytical books. There, you will find "The Blue Fairy Book," "The Bear and the Nightingale," and "The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories" alongside "Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion," "Morphology of Folklore," and "The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales." I have a shelf for general criticism and theory that works for most books I want to analyze. They are at eye level. I have a section for classics, modernists, feminists, the sciences (from social to hard science), and several other categories. If a book can go into multiple categories, I have more than one of them. Upstairs in the hall, I have my "light" reading. (It has one of my "Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism," so my husband argues it is not "light.") In the art studio, I have all my art books; books about religion, atheism, and paganism; and the start of my "The Scarlet Letter" collection that I am slowly rebuilding.

As you can see, my way makes no sense to anyone but me. Haha!

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Do whatever works!

We have a lot of books but I just sorted them by type and then author and then series order. After that; you have to search what you want to find. It could use a refreshing. And DD has been reading books from my collection these days. But it still works for us. DH and I don't read the same genera so in some ways it's like our things are separate. I have my cookbooks on a small table with 2 shelves that my Grandpa built in the kitchen area. We have 2 book cases for just kids books. One is in the dining area and more geared for school. The other is in the living room and probably needs to be purged of things they've outgrown. I have another 4 shelf bookshelf in the dining area for school books and resources. And extra supplies. DD has a tiny shelf in her room that I think I was originally designed to be a small media cabinet. She's going to need a true shelf before long too. DS has one of those cube/cubby storage shelves in his room that holds most of his books.

 

[Margot Lane]

Not

 

[AbbysMom]

Do whatever works for you. I have all of the wine in my cellar tagged and entered into an app. People think it's ridiculous, but it works for us.

 

[strider rose]

i write down all my books that i have

 

[susanm9006]

That is a lot of books. How you organize sort of needs to be the way you think of your books. Does author make a big difference to you, or is it title or type, like fiction, non fiction or topic. Maybe fiction by author and title, and everything else by topic?

 

[vince]

That is a lot of books. How you organize sort of needs to be the way you think of your books. Does author make a big difference to you, or is it title or type, like fiction, non fiction or topic. Maybe fiction by author and title, and everything else by topic?

Many of my books are of a technical nature. Author doesn't matter so much, as long as they're organized by topic.