To want some kind of order in the home library?

[butterpieify]

We have approximately 750 books. No idea how we got this many, they just kind of built up. The kids alone have over 100. We gave away 250 a few years back and it barely dented our shelves.

Anyhow, we are very quickly getting sick of not being able to find the book we want, so I am pushing for a better system. We have a vague thing where books tend to be near where they were last read, so the kids books tend to be near the toys, the trashy novels and browsing books tend to be in the bathroom, reference works are in the front room, feminism, history, politics and sociology tend to be in the garden room for some reason, and literary fiction has a habit of being in the bedroom. Computer manuals and buisnessy books are near the computer, comics are high up or the kids mess with them, and outsize tend to be in the shelves under the tv.

This can not continue.

However, my MIL (who is a trained librarian) thinks it hilarious that we would try to impose order. I suppose our shelves are nothing after a career dealing with proper libraries, but still.

We seperate non fiction, and childrens.

Then the remaining fiction gets listed alphabetically regardless of type. (I do this with dvds too!)

YANBU. I also hoard books. My DH made me a wall of shelves for them (which I quickly filled and he had to build more shelves - oops). Anyway, with that many books you have to have some order otherwise you wont be able to find anything.

My wall of books starts with small sections for drama theory, plays and poetry. Below that is a row of DVDs - also alphabetised but with a special Disney section at the beginning. Then the big section of alphabetised novels and biographies. Kids picture books are below that - at child accessible height. In the hallway are non-fiction sorted into groups including sport, craft, parenting, comedy, maths, general science, gardening etc. In the spare room the computer books are above the pc and religious books are on the extra shelves in there. Oh and there are also children's books in their room. Is that OCD enough?

YANBU My OH organised our books by subject matter. Although I laughed about it at the time, I have to admit it has made it much easier to find books.

Yikes, I do this. Got 2 bookcases full of childrens fiction, one full of children's non-fiction. Then all adult books are vaguely placed around the house in subject matter.

DH and I argue about this from time to time. He wants alphabetic order, I contend that having them all mixed up means that you have the pleasure of re-discovering a book that you had forgotten you had!

We do have them broadly arranged in categories though, and even I have to admit that we need to get rid of a lot of them too now that they are two volumes deep on all our shelves .

Catergories is fraught with problems though. EG does "celebrating girls" go under feminism or parenting? Is "down and out in Paris and London" history or social studies? We would have to look things up and find out what dewey code had been given to them. And that way madness lies.

I have packed all my books down in big cardboard boxes. The only books out in our house are "books received/purchased post 2009".

It is not that many.
But this system works. We have NO chaos.

we roughly group them according to subject (if facutal which ost of them are) so politcal stuff here, histoy here, travel guides here etc

dd separates hers according to lanauge and then between fiction/non-fiction with series all together so all the Mallroy Towers would be near each other

You can still hunt for any specific book you want though, it is invariably not where you'd think to look for it

I agree, categories is a source of endless discussions in our house - especially as we have separate sections for maths and general science. Where do books on chess go - sport, pastimes? Even separating out childrens' books is difficult - where does The Little Prince go? Where does Treasure Island go? That's why we separate out picture books rather than childrens' books. But it isn't about having the perfect system, just knowing vaguely where things might be.

I think it's pretty much impossible to keep home-owned books in any sort of order (and I have quite a lot more than 750, so I know it doesn't get any better!). We've found we can keep the same authors together, but after that - chaos ensues!

If you find a solution I'd love to know it.

my bookshelves currently look like they have been ransacked.

they were all nicely alphabetical with separate non-fiction and also a recipe book section.

two things have derailed the system.

1. arrival of DS nearly 18 months ago. every book i have acquired since then is sitting on top of /in front of the nicely ordered ones as I've never found the time.

1. my MIL always buying me hard backs. i always preferred to wait (and pay less) for paperbacks so have been thrown into chaos with all the big books. very generous of her so i haven't been able to tell her as I'd sound a bit rude!

can't wait to sort them out. i know i have too many for the shelf space though and i hate letting go of books.

just bought 5 more with my birthday money, they are homeless. :(

in case you didn't guess i think YANBU. :)

our home library is categorised. My Adult fiction, alphabetically. Non fiction is in topic categories. Work/academic non fiction separate again into topic categories.

DDs' books: fiction alphabetically, separate shelves for non-fiction.

Dp's books, separate bookshelf. (his categories: fiction, computing, science, and maps).

I'm not very OCD at all. I don't worry about exact categories, or fiction/biography overlap, I jut make snap decisions on those. But it would be chaos with the books otherwise.

Clever books & large books& non fiction downstairs. Fiction in our room & landing. Kids books in their room & landing. Dd3s books in the toy basket apart from nice ones which are on the shelves in the living room. All done by size. Dh didn't get how excited I was to unpack all my books when we moved in together!

I don't have my books in any order.
I just know where they are.

This might be an obsession, but I do spend ages if I move house putting them on shelves- it's like an instinct that I know where they are.

I can even picture them in my head if I want to get one out where it will be.

Nickel. Wow. Can you pass that skill on, please?

Mine are all double-spaced on the shelves and I spend ages hunting.

I can do that nickel. Dh will mention a book & I can go to it.

Ours are in ten big cardboard boxes and are culled regularly due to moving house three times in the last two years but they are completely unmanageable.

I have a Kindle now which helps but only last week I ordered three (1p) retro second-hand bonkbusters from Amazon

I don't know what the answer is. A lottery win probably.

I have my fiction in alphabetical order and non-fiction according to subject area.

I used to cull books quite regularly, but with 3 dds reading enthusiastically it seems the wrong time to get rid of books, they'll probably want to read quite a few of them in a few years. So we are making more (higher) bookshelves for the next decade of book-collecting, and I will do a super-cull when all the dds have left home.

ah, therre's your first error - you shouldn't double-space them.

In the middle of our living room, we have two bookcases side-by-side that act as a room divider - that's the only double spacing I will allow - cos the second row faces the other side of the room.

Don't forget the stariway can house bookshelves, and above doors, too.

stairway

The double spacing is a must, annoyingly. We've also got boxes under the bed and the sofa. Ah well ... one day I'll have those lovely built-in bookcases that go over doors and use the height of the room.

seriously, LRD, do it now!
Put shelves up around the top parts of your rooms.

It's the best unused space for books.

We've got about 5,300 books.
Yes we have a system, otherwise finding a specific text would be nigh impossible.