How do you organize your books?

[Poiuyt]

I am in the process of building a new library in my home. What I am wondering about specifically is if you shelve your fiction paperbacks with hardcover books or if you keep them separate? Putting them altogether in alphabetical order makes the most sense as far as finding books easily, but shelving the paperbacks separately would be a more efficient use of space.

What about keeping to-be-read books separately? I tend to pick out my next book according to the mood I'm in, so it would be nice to have all those together.

Non-fiction I organize by subject without regard to the binding.

[rfranklin]

1. Dewey Decimal System....

The classes are:

000 – Computer science, information and general works
100 – Philosophy and psychology
200 – Religion
300 – Social sciences
400 – Language
500 – Science (including mathematics)
600 – Technology and applied Science
700 – Arts and recreation
800 – Literature
900 – History, geography, and biography

[fadedrose]

13. Off-OP topic, but..

how do you know if an ISBN is a paperback or hardcover?

Am in the process of either ordering old books (Doss) or getting any kind of book from an interlibrary source, and they don't readily say what the book is, they just give an ISBN - I always have to send a email and ask if its a hardback...

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. copy the ISBN, go to Amazon book section, paste ISBN into the search bar

the book will pop up, it will tell you.

[fadedrose]

15. Thanks...

That's what I've been doing, and it's a pain. Some of the booksellers don't even list an ISBN until you place an order. I found out all by my lonesome to go the Library of Congress and they give you all kinds of ISBN's, but there too, no saying what the structure is...

Thank you..

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Hahaha hahahaha.

Organize (gasp, snork) books!

Chortle.

:rofl:

[RevStPatrick]

9. That's what I was just thinking.

It's all a random mess, mixed up with videos and music CDs, musical instruments, old birthday cards, figurines of various sorts, drug paraphernalia, and whatnot.

EXACTLY the way I like it!

On edit - The irony is that I know exactly where any particular book is located. There's about 3000 of them altogether...

[JaneQPublic]

3. Library of Congress cataloging system

Whether you use LOC or Dewey, most books have these numbers printed on about the second page in, on the publication data page. I just copy the number there onto a sticky note, put it on the outside of each book, and then sort!

[MineralMan]

4. Poorly.

I have several large sets of bookshelves, including one floor to ceiling one that is 16 feet long. My books are organized almost at random, which makes looking for a specific one a real challenge. I keep meaning to do something about this, but never seem to get around to it.

Generally books are grouped by subject area for non-fiction, and more or less alphabetically by author for fiction, but any book can be anywhere, really.

Still, looking for a particular book often leads me to find a different one, which is almost as enjoyable. There are almost no books in my library I haven't already read, so re-reading old favorites is part of my life.

These days, I'm reading on my Kindle most of the time, finally getting to some 19th century non-fiction I couldn't find or afford before the Kindle. Very nice. I have a very, very eclectic taste in reading material, from 19th century etiquette books to all types of old natural history stuff.

[northoftheborder]

5. I love all people who love books (real ones).

My hundreds of books are loosely organized as to topic: not Dewey system, not alphabetized. Architecture and Arts (subgroups within that category), cookbooks, (sometimes according to type, but usually out of place,) fiction, general non-fiction, politics and current events, old books belonging to my family ancestors are together whatever they are, gardening, books unread are together, also I have a large stack of books to be given away, donated, or sold. I do not separate hard back from paper back. I am going to build a house with a library built in- and all my books will be together in one place, at last. I would like to have a library ladder system, so they could go to the ceiling. I doubt I will ever succumb to the Kindle. If I go blind, I will listen to books on tape.

[eleny]

6. I know what you mean about the paperbacks

If the shelves are strong enough, the paperbacks can be stacked on their sides to make good use of the space. I've done that and put family keepsakes in between so it doesn't look industrial.

The only way we separate our books is by fiction and non fiction. The way I keep organized is to use the library as much as possible.

[Warpy]

7. People organize their books?

I've always thought the joy of having a large number of books was in finding something you didn't remember you had while you were searching for something else, doubling your pleasure.

[jwirr]

8. I have a great system - my great grandchildren take them off the

shelf see there are no pictures and lay them on the floor. Fortunately they have all been taught to take care to not tear the pages. Seriously I have mine organized according to subjects. That way I know where to look when I want a specific book. I only have about 300 books. My son in law made me get rid of some of them when he was moving me to a new house.

[SheilaT]

10. Only very loosely. In general, hardbacks are with

hardbacks, but sometimes in certain categories the hb and paperbacks are together. For example, I have a shelf that is foreign language, including textbooks and dictionaries. Another shelf is linguistics and language. I have a shelf of needlework books, mostly crochet and knitting. Another shelf is more or less sociology. There's a shelf of hard back fiction I want to get around to reading, and another shelf of paperback non fiction I'd like to get around to reading. A couple of shelves of science fiction.

The order is loose and somewhat idiosyncratic, but I can usually, although by no means always, find a book I'm looking for. Right now I'm puzzling out the whereabouts of two particular books I'm certain should be here. One I ordered from Amazon only about four months ago, so I can't imagine what I've done with it. Another is one that I know for certain I used to own, but maybe it was one of the ones I discarded when I moved three years ago.

I do try to keep all the library books in one location so that I can read and return those in a timely manner.

[JackintheGreen]

11. We arrange ours by color

It looks nice, and by the time you sort them you know where they all are. Besides, whenever I look for a book I know I have I look for what I remember it looking like. Already know the name.

[Speck Tater]

12. I took them all to Goodwill. It's their problem now. Viva La Kindle! nt

[fadedrose]

16. Got tired of doing what you're doing,,

and gave most away or sold cheap at yard sales. Didn't have too many hardbacks, mostly paperbacks.

Topic books, like birds, trees, cookbooks, I never part with. I keep those handy whereever. In spring when the birds come back from goofin around in the southern sun, the bird books are on the window sill. Cookbooks are whereever I left them and still don't know where some are. Tree books - same as birds. When leaves come back. they're all over the place - by the computer, windowsills, end tables, nightstand - anywhere convenient.

Books on religion (Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.) are on top shelf gathering dust in a bookcase. They helped me to give up religion and they are getting a well-deserved rest.

Works for me.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. I approached the "remembering what books I have, and where," problem

a bit differently.
Because of the layout of our house, books are in several areas in several rooms.
I made a spreadsheet of Title, Author, location, and a 4th column for "swapped out" since I use swap sites.
Now I can look any book up, by title, and see where I put it in the house.
( this assumes no one else is moving your books around, of course)

Some of the locations are:

"red bookcase" ( all the gardening books go there)
"living room bookcase": all the Doonesbury collection, etc and all the how to/home decorating, books go there
" swap box" for the books I am willing to swap
"to read box" of the next 30 or so I think I will want to read soon.
"kitchen" for the cookbooks
"nightstand"
"top" ( or center or bottom) shelf for the one narrow wall bookcase I do have.

On those days it was too nasty to be outside, I took a stack of books, listed them on the spread sheet,
over time got them all down, and now it is easy to add new ones, or change location of old ones.

Best benefit? I don't forget I have read or own a book I am tempted to buy.

And the whole file is on a thumb drive.

Next job: to name all the dust bunnies.

[End Of The Road]

18. self delete

[pscot]

19. I have some upstairs

and some downstairs.

[JitterbugPerfume]

20. what is this "organize"you speak of?

[fadedrose]

21. You'n me are too old to know what organiz'n is...

When we grew up there wasn't enough of anything to "organize."

Well, there was the ironing and the sprinkled clothes in the refrig..I mean icebox...and maybe putting your hat in the hatbox when you came home from church, but other than that. Maybe she's just got too much books...

[Poiuyt]

22. I'm a he

And it's impossible to got too much books. IMHO.

[JitterbugPerfume]

23. yes we are Rose!

I did all of those things , and more. OH! how I hated ironing white shirts!
:loveya:

[valerief]

24. By color, of course. nt

[BlueIris]

25. Sort of organized by genre/subject.

Sort of.