article on the never ending dilemma of how to organize your shelves

I can sympathise with the people in this article, I change my mind on organization at least once a year. sigh.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/people-of-the-bookshelf/413/

I classify til I die

I don't worry too much about organizing the books on my shelf. I worry about organizing the books in the piles on my floor.

You mean there are actually people who don't organize their shelves? Barbarians!

My library started with fiction and alpha by author was the only way to go. Then I started collecting cookbooks and of course they had to be separated. The same when I took to reading non-fiction. Now, as my interests get more and more specialized I have an irresistible urge to go by subject. Thankfully I will never be able to decide on what subjects or how to assign books.

I used to do alphabetical by author, but every time I added something towards the top of the shelf and had to move all the other books down, it was a huge pain in the butt, particularly since my shelves have brackets underneath (i.e. across the top of the next shelf down) and I can't just slide them down to the end. Now it's just organized by genre with no order at all within the genre. (Please don't stone me!)

Organized by press!

>6 EmScape:
My wife and I keep our fiction alpha by author, but it can lead to some awkward spots where you're trying to shove something in where it doesn't fit, or you have a sort of empty spot at the end of a shelf because the next item won't fit.

We once joked that we needed to go to a book store and say "Do you have anything about this thick by someone whose last name starts with A?"

I think I'm the only one that goes alpha by title. I just never pay much attention to the authors, just to whether I like the individual book.

My library does something that I find highly annoying. In the fiction section, they shelve by last name only, and within that by title. Which is fine if you're looking for the latest by Peter Pfeffernüsse*, but not so much you're browsing for books by a guy named Sam Smith.

*made up name

I went through a phase of organising by colour. It was very aesthetically appealing, but eventually the urge to alphabetise won out, and now I'm strictly A-Z by author (but only for fiction; my non-fiction is vaguely organised by subject, but imprecisely at best)

I am obsessive in my organizing by subject, and have mostly non-fiction. My book cases are therefor still labelled in the old style as "USA History", "English History", "Politics", "Sailing".

Of course, over the years, the books on the shelves (to say nothing on those on the floor, coffee tables and top of the commode) have become pure chaos and (double) fitted where I could force them in!

My non-fiction is pretty static, and is vaguely organised by subject. My fiction, however ...

Well, I made a basic distinction between science fiction and everything else, and then decided that fantasy wasn't science fiction (and why don't bookstores understand that?) so that separation needed doing. Then series needed to be separated from stand-alone, and then incomplete series from complete series, and then read series from unread series ...

Bookshelves! How wonderfully bourgeois!

But seriously, I've shed at least 90% of my material possessions this year, so floor stacking provides more than enough space (and rather suits my frazzled lifestyle). Any permanent addictions to my library are likely to be so particular in subject matter that they require almost zero organisation. It's all very organic.. though I do miss having things to file and classify by genre. Fracturing into increasingly bizarre sub-genres with each glass of Scotch.

oh, don't get me started on the piles, I try to organize them but family members keep moving things about.

As I've mentioned in another thread, different cases or sections of them hold broad genres. However, when one has one or two cases for a specific genre, our interest in them defines how they are shelved. Often this may be different than what would occur to anyone else. For example:

In the two cases of the books that inspired Disney films and television programs collection, the books are arranged first in sections (feature films, television, shorts) and then according to the release date of the visual product (film, etc.). Hence, in the feature film section it goes Snow White (1937), Pinocchio (1940), etc. When possible, we try to find first American versions of the specific stories or editions that inspired the films. It has been interesting to compare the book and film stories and discover that sometimes the film is better as in the case of Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes.

For the Stratemeyer and Stratemeyer Syndicate collections there are shelves devoted to the 160 books Edward Stratemeyer personally wrote. For the Syndicate items, I have grouped them by the ghostwriter who worked on them, organized by the year when that ghost first started writing for the Syndicate (Weldon J. Cobb, Howard R. Garis, etc.). It means that some series with multiple ghostwriters are split up. To help indicate the divisions I have added movable shelf markers with photos of the writer whenever possible. There are a few writers for whom we have not found photos, of course.

Other collections are divided up according to size, display qualities, and occasionally subdivided by subgenre (e.g. Kim's academic books).

Until we have more space (badly needed) this organization will have to suffice.

James

The very idea of a "punishment shelf" is hilarious. It sounds like he's holding those books prisoner.

14 Any permanent addictions to my library...

I don't know if that was deliberate or a Fruedian slip, either way it made my afternoon :)

My art and literature books are organized by date of birth of the author (although not together at this point). This makes great sense to me in understanding the sometimes surprising relationships of authors and artists working in roughly the same era. I often ask people who are looking at the bookshelves to guess how they are organized. Almost no one, even with hints has been able to get it.

Yolanda, thanks for sharing that article! I love Geraldine Brooks' writing and am currently reading her novel, Caleb's Crossing.

I actually love reorganizing my shelves and find I need to redo it every 2-3 years. Newly bought books tend to get crammed whenever I can find space, as I hate to have them on the floor. I also like to try out different shelving schemes. I also tried the color scheme shelving but after spending the afternoon hunting for a book that's spine was a different color from the front cover decided it was not for me.

Right now, I'm shelving my non-fiction books based on genre but with size taken into consideration to maximize shelving efficiency. For example, all of my hardcover exploration/nautical books are shelved together but the trade papers are elsewhere. Fiction is just a chaotic mess with the only division being between read and TBR.

I am trying to keep my fiction organized alphabetically by author, and my non-fiction by topic (like a public library), but my issue is fitting the properly organized book into the room that is left over on the appropriate shelf...and so the books wind up being somewhat haphazard at times...

Very amusing article, and I love reading all the comments there & here and seeing how everyone shelves!

My own version is like EmScape in 6. I sort by genre/topic, and go with how they fit into the shelves, not alpha (but those by the same author are together, as well as series). I know where everything is, and the ease of the occasional visitor is not a concern! :P Once I have proper shelves the divisions will probably be less broad (as I do with my DVDs - by genre and then subgenre or starring actor (eg horror - vampire, action - Seagal)), but right now I have those crummy IKEA cubby-style shelves, so there's multiple rows in most of them (which just kills me!) and the visible ones are unread, read ones go behind. But maybe not. It will depend on whether I can make it work out. If more than a couple authors broach multiple sub-genres within their genre where I can't group them all under one umbrella, then that notion will likely wind up scrapped.

Frankly: it's a bit of a mess, but I mostly know what's where.

Basic division, as with many: fiction / non-fiction. Fiction essentially goes alphabetically, non-fiction mostly by period - since most of it is history / art history. I'm never fully satisfied with how this works out for books on other topics.

Then the exceptions come in. Comics / graphic novels aren't shelved with the rest of the fiction, but have a book case of their own. So has my collection of Lewis Carroll / Alice stuff (and that includes both fiction and non-fiction). And my books on art practice are at the room I use for a studio.

And then it gets progressively worse. Due to space restrictions I've had to double (even triple) stack. All books need to go with books roughly the same size. And then there are the piles. Oh my...

Oh yes, graphic types go on their own (though if I had more of them (which I would if they didn't cost such a pretty penny! hrmph) they would be sorted by genre within themselves). And I do have stacks of books on top of those in the shelves (because they're too freaking tall, such an awful design!) as well as around 40 on top of a cart-thing that has some various other odds & ends that also have no home. :P

(23) @BarkingMatt, reading your post reminded me of my Louis L'Amour shelf: it's about five feet long crammed with his books. A few are double shelved on one end, a couple are lying flat on top, and I have also shelved my copy of The Virginian there.

Below that shelf is another, about 28" long, chock-full of CJ Cherryh books. I can't get all her works on the one shelf, but I tried.

I sort fiction by genre (mystery, SF, etc.), then by author, then by series order or by title if the author doesn't write series. My comics are shelved by comic title and then in order chronologically (so "Dilbert" before "Doonesbury"). Oversized books get relegated to separate shelf purgatory for not fitting in with the rest. Non-fiction is by my own mental groupings and subgroupings - so Science, then Paleontology, which is between Geology and Biology. Children's books are by rough reading level, with a few pulled to one side for pretty pictures.

#20 good to hear, how is Caleb's Crossing? I've had it sitting in my tbr pile for quite a while.

For me the hardest are the books the crossover books, where i collect both categories. Does Josh Cohen's Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto go on the music in fiction shelf, or the Joshua Cohen shelf, does The Iliad go on the classical history shelf or just filed alphabetically under fiction? I change my mind on these a lot.

>27 yolana: Unfortunately, it is not going to be one of my favorite books by her. I've already finished two other books since I've started Caleb's Crossing, which is a bad sign for me when I'm reading fiction. Her writing is superb, but the story itself isn't as enticing as her others. I've only read four chapters so far, so perhaps my opinion will change. I'll let you know what I think when I finish it.

They had just completed a house renovation, a feature of which was a magnificent bookshelf that spanned two floors.

I know she means "bookcase", but I can't help visualising that shelf as a sort of Golden Gate Bridge of books, stretching across the void...

The non-random juxtapositions of alphabetical order are always part of the fun of shelving. Ingeborg Bachmann between Jane Austen and Beryl Bainbridge sort of makes sense, but when you move on to James Baldwin and R.M. Ballantyne, they probably wouldn't want to share a desert island. Alan and Arnold Bennett would probably have got on, in a matter-of-fact Northern sort of way, but I don't imagine that they'd have made much of their shelf-neighbour Saul Bellow.

Fiction alphabetically leaves me with Author A-G in an upstairs bedroom, G-P in an overflow room, and Q-Z in the living room. At least nonfiction by topic allows me to group roughly in the same book shelf or two. 29 book shelves, but need to get more. And more house.

Like fuzzi, I too have a dedicated CJ Cherryh shelf, about 4 book-feet long. But I still have to put half of her books behind the others.

I do have three bookcases 7 ft high by 3 ft wide each for my non-CJ Cherryh science fiction.

Talking about this out loud, so to speak, makes me feel my strangeness.

stellarexplorer, at least you're in good company!

Which is unquestionably a relief! :-D

Since I finally added enough bookshelves to unpack the final boxes of books from our last move which was 10 years ago, I am ready to organize! Up to now, little to no organization. I recalled this topic so thought I would resurrect it and see what new thoughts folks have on organization.

I am pretty much organize fiction alphabetic by author. But what to do about short story collections or a series where individual books were written by different authors?

I really stall out on non-fiction. I want to organize by genre but so many books either fit in more than one category or don’t seem to fit in any. Is “Pedestrianism” sports or American history? And where does “Outhouses” go (hey it was a gift and I never get rid of books)?

I do the same for fiction, and I have some story collections under the editors name. If the editor is not an author I already have, I just put the story collections after all of the rest of the fiction by order of editor's name.

For non-fiction, I have chosen a few categories that encompass most of my books, science, science & math textbooks, history, animals-nature-photography, politics, film-musics, and other. It mostly works but there have been times when I know I have a book and I don't know where I put it. That's why I should have tagged my non-fiction with a category in LibraryThing so that I would know which category I chose. I think there are as many tagging systems for book location as there are LibraryThing users!

#33 I keep anthologies segregated from the rest of my fiction and sort by the editor's name.

If you've catalogued your non-fiction on LT using LoC or university library data, it will include the LoC and/or Dewey numbers for each book. I just sort my LT library by the call number and shelve accordingly (I use LoC because that's what all the American universities I've studied or taught at use).

Since I'm the only reader in my household, I have a very loose organizing system.

Initially, they are separated by size (hardbacks and the various sizes of paperbacks). At first, I tried sorting them by subject, but having the different sizes together drove me crazy and lasted less than a week.

Fiction and non-fiction are sorted within the sizes, then very loosely sorted into genres and then alphabetized by last name. So for example, hardback detective fiction and mystery books are grouped together and sorted by last name. If I have several detective fiction books by the same author and that author has written other other fiction or non-fiction books, they are all grouped together.

Paperback books are generally grouped into non-fiction and fiction (then roughly by subject), children's books (books I've kept from childhood, more or less), and classics (stuff like Shakespeare or stuff that a person might have read in a high school English class).

Books I have by the same author, but have roughly an equal amount of hardback and paperback, are grouped together. Otherwise they are kept separate (meaning if I have all but one hardback, the paperback will be shelved separately).

At this point, I start shelving and will end up shuffling things around. Books by the same author have to be on the same shelf, so I'll move books out of order to make it happen and do what I can to try and get everything is some sort of rough order.

I'm sure it sounds needlessly complicated, but it makes more sense visually and it's still a work in progress.

I was almost done Dewey-decimalizing my library when I realized what an archaic system it is. For instance what's in "Folklore" and what's in "History" seems pretty arbitrary. Actually much of the classification seems racist/sexist/classist. "Arts" and "Crafts" seems to create a hierarchy of importance that should not exist. The whole idea of a "women's interest" section (sociology) seems almost insulting in the 21st century. Separating fiction by country makes no sense anymore: What do you do about the books written by mixed-race expats, when different libraries disagree as to where they belong? Canadian fiction, don't even get me started. So much of my library feels misplaced.

I revived his topic back in post 33 so I thought I would tell you all were I ended up. First off I have bookshelves all over which complicates the organization. So the living room has all my fiction books by author with no regards to topic. Also no paperbacks here. Also in the living room are biographies and memoirs. And another bookcase of non-fiction by topic; business/finance, travel, transportation, maps. Office bookshelf contains reference books and genealogy books. Finished basement has all non-fiction. History is somewhat organized. First, US history in chronological order followed by other regions and world history then misc. history. Other non-fiction books are grouped by topic; home repair, woodworking, gardening, animals, entertainment, etc. The unfinished side of the basement has a bookcase for paperbacks but they did not all fit so I had to go double depth on one shelf. I hate that.

I had a ton-o-fun rearranging and organizing my books. I'm done for now but wouldn't surprised if I make some changes.

I grew up with SAB, the Swedish Public Library Association's classification system, so that's what I'm using. It's also antiquated in some respects, farming, cooking and economic systems are the same call number, for example. Very 18th century.

Some day I'm going to design my own taxonomy that makes ultimate sense. Where Educational Matters doesn't hog a whole category and where the separate natural sciences get their own categories. Where computers and information technology don't have to share a category with railways or manufacturing.

I am the only reader in my home. I have 3 bookcases (and need more)
1. in my bedroom--books I have not read, or ones that I'm going to keep (not many). This bookcase is 4 shelves and it is double-stacked each shelf with about 30 books on the top!
2. in the living room (parlor)-one bookcase with antique books and big fatties!
3. in the living room-one bookcase with oversized coffee table type books

Until I can control the "unreads", there is no use, imho, to categorize or sort them. If I had to find one, I could within 5-10 minutes.

You can see all my bookcases in my profile.

Well, we could of course use this solution ...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32890006
From the BBC.

That is going on my list of dream jobs!

>14 buskingghosts: Bookshelves! How wonderfully bourgeois!

Yeah, come the revolution, these middle-class capitalists and their bookshelves will be the first with their backs against the wall!

Hmm, now that I think about it, bookshelves already have their backs against the wall. Okay then.

Hiring somebody else to create your "collection" is a cop-out. If you truly like books, you will do it
yourselves.

I have different methods of organization depending on the subject. For classic fiction and nonfiction, I tend to organize chronologically by original publication date or historical period they cover (and original publication date within that - for example all WWII books would be shelved first, with contemporaneous ones up until recent ones), because I happen to think of them that way. For other genres, by main genre, subgenre if I have enough books to justify it (e.g., fairytale retellings is a subgenre I have a lot of, so it is its own subsection, but hard scifi is not, so it's just with the other scifi). Then by size, and alpha by author OR series name (if the series has multiple authors) within that. Because I am much more likely to remember a book was about so big than I am to actually remember the author.

Usually each subject or subgenre is 1-2 shelves, and I try to keep them on complete shelves, not part of a shelf. Each room has a shelf of spares where overflows and books that don't clearly fit in any subject go. Of course, there's also the issue that the "pretty" books go in the living room while the regular ones go in the study. But the pretty books are usually larger than regular paperbacks, so it's still mostly like I'm grouping by size.

All my paperbacks have a row of DVDs behind them, alpha by title (no matter whether it is a movie or tv show). I've thought about getting rid of them but ultimately I can't always find the things I own on Netflix so I end up keeping them lest I have to pay again or pirate them when I want to watch.

My father's library is organized by the Dewey Decimal System. It took him ages.

I really wish the kindle had a better organization system than manually adding to collections. My collections are haphazard and I often forget to add books, and I have over 2000 kindle books so it's actively hard for me to remember what I do and do not own, and scrolling through them all takes ages, PLUS they randomly change the covers on you sometimes so you could know you are looking for a primarily green cover only now it is purple so you scroll right by. Anyway, that's why I've gone back to paper books lately. I have found the kindle and related apps simply too unwieldy to manage efficiently. I still read on it a lot, but I try to buy books directly from publishers that do a physical book + ebook bundle, or read things from Project Gutenberg or buy the Kindle Deals if they have any I want. But it takes considerably less time for me to scan over a bookshelf and pull out the book I'm looking for than it does for me to scroll around the kindle app trying to find it if I can't remember the title or author (which I often can't).

Color scheme organization wouldn't work for me - I'd never be able to find anything. I know I remember, for instance, that my German philosophers are located around the skinny red book in the philosophy section, and that would be utterly destroyed if all the red books were together.

I am so jealous of all you rich bastards who have enough walls to put shelves against.
I too wish I had the problem of how to organize my books. See >3 lilithcat: above.
Look, I can always buy a few more Billy Book Shelves (If I cut down my Scotch allowance) BUT,
There are no more walls!

And don't tell me to buy a bigger house. Melbourne's house prices are through the roof.

Sobs in his Scotch...Such a First world problem...

Guido.

>47 guido47: Maybe through the roof is the solution to your problem? ;-)