Please settle an argument, am I odd?

[sashh]

So my carer has just come into my office and made a remark about my 'eclectic' book collection.

I responded that they are organised by Dewey-decimal system.

He claim this is odd.

In order not to drip feed my cookery books are in the living room and in spine colour order and fiction is kept on my kindle.

I do not think I am odd. I think it is completely sensible to have text books organised this way.

My cookery books are in the living room (organized by writer) and my trashy fic is on the Kindle as well.
Now't here to see OP.

Mine are arranged alphabetically by author. If I have more than one title by a certain author then they are in chronological reading order.

I’m a former librarian who is now an English teacher. My books are organised by Dewey decimal for non-fiction with labels on the spines. Fiction alphabetically by authors surname. My books, my rules! You are not odd- they are your books to organise however you like! Happy reading.

I can't really understand the question as they are your books, so obviously you can organise them how you please. Having said that, I organise by category and author. I really judge people who organise by color.

I have had a serious discussion with a friend (we met while working in a library) about whether to organise books by Dewey, and I don't have quite enough shelf space to go fully Dewey*, but they are arranged by category. Fiction is alphabetical by author, and I spent a couple of days reshelving them a few months ago.

It may be odd, but those who don't think like us are just wrong.

• I never fully got my head round Library of Congress, so Dewey was the only option, as I'm too general to go for a more specific cataloguing system as I've seen in some specialised libraries.

@SOLINVICTUS

I agree with pp. You misunderstood what he said. Eclectic is, if anything, the opposite of how you have your books arranged (if arrangements were the topic) He was saying you have lots of different books. As for organization of textbooks, I'd have thought most people follow a system.

Yes, this. You were responding to a remark he didn’t in fact make. Did you misunderstand what he meant by ‘eclectic’.

@Merryoldgoat I've really come round to it! About 2/3 have the author's birth year in the mini biog just inside, the other 1/3 we had to look up and write in pencil inside. When we moved house, though, I nipped round taking photos of the shelves for a quick reference and then tried to roughly pack in order to make things quicker at the other end... and then made DH unpack all the books because he's the book hoarder!

Unless you have a massive library, I think it's unusual to arrange books by the Dewey decimal system, but not necessarily odd. I do think it's odd to arrange books by the colour of their spine.

I think the oddest thing is the stupid decoration trend of storing books 'page outwards'.
I'd never find anything if I did that, and can only imagine it would suit people who can't read or perhaps don't mind which book they colour in.

I have some books arranged in publication date order, by author - it's not even a series of books you need to read in any particular order.

One shelf is in alphabetical order by author AND title - eg Neil Gaiman before Terry Pratchett (Good Omens sandwiches the two), American Gods before Anansi Boys etc).

I arrange my non-fiction books by general subject matter and then by height. Natural history, dictionaries / reference & Shakespeare on one shelf, cookery on another, then the gardening shelf, DH's music stuff on another etc. We have quite a lot of books.

My local charity shop organises everything by its colour - CDs included. You can never find anything.

Did he mean eclectic collection or eccentric to order them in such a way?

We have a lot of books all organised my way. It's not your way but it suits us.

I think it's really really weird when I go into a home with no books.

@iklboo

I have some books arranged in publication date order, by author - it's not even a series of books you need to read in any particular order.

One shelf is in alphabetical order by author AND title - eg Neil Gaiman before Terry Pratchett (Good Omens sandwiches the two), American Gods before Anansi Boys etc).

I was about to say similar and had Terry Pratchett in mind!

My son cemented his memory of the alphabet by re-shelving all the books after knocking over my bookcase one day :D

DH & I had a lot of fun arranging our DVD collection (remember those) by something thank linked each film to the one next to it. It was a bit 'Six Degrees'.

It's a bit eccentric. DH is autistic and when we met he used to organise his CDs not just alphabetically but also by style of music. Since I had no idea of the difference between classical and baroque, I could never bloody find anything. He also has books organised by subject alphabetically, so close to dewy decimal but not quite so specific.

My non-fiction books are arranged roughly by Dewey Decimal, but within each subject there's an internal order which is often not related, e.g. cookery is before history but within history the subsections are my own division, not dewey. For a lot of subjects I only have one or two books, but for my doctoral topic I've got loads, so I need some internal system between them.

My fiction books are by century of publication, and within each century by author surname.

No one has ever called it odd, and only a couple of people have even asked me how they're organised. I can't imagine it's generally an very interesting thing for others to comment on!

@emilyfrost

I think it’s odd. Most people don’t organise their books they just shove them on the bookshelf 🤷‍♀️

Really? Most people I know organise them especially those with large book collections. Mine are by Genre then alphabetical by author. There is occasionally an odd random book, but that will be put on the odd random bookshelf with other odd random books. Even my DCs books are organised.

I am an academic so I have a lot of books. They are organised by subject. When I moved a few years ago my OP organised them by size as a surprise for me. We had a D&M chat - he thought everyone did it this way .

@2bazookas

We have a lot of books all organised my way. It's not your way but it suits us.

I think it's really really weird when I go into a home with no books.

Don't start, @2bazookas. You'll get the endless stream of posters claiming that they read fourteen hundred books a week, but on their kindles, or solely library books, or that the second they finish each book they donate it, so there are no visible books in their house at all.

I used to organise fiction alphabetically in order, then title alphabetically within each section.

Non-fiction also alphabetically- topic and author.

Then I ran out of bookcase space and got rid of 80% of the fiction and transferred to Kindle.

Organised books are necessary, imo, whichever way you choose to do it.

I feel I should know this but what is the Dewey Decimal system please? I bet someone on the thread is dying to explain it.

I do know that eclectic means though.

I'm always amused by posters who say "doesn't everyone do that?"

No, clearly they don't. I agree with @Cocomarine, but taking the OP at face value (I had to Google the system) it's one of any number of ways people choose to store their possessions.
Personally, I don't keep hundreds of books so I don't need a system.

I don't think that's odd, are you sure that's what he meant?

I worked in a library throughout university, and although I was always a bit fussy with how I organise my books, I can say confidently that the library experience made me positively anal. 😂

Just thinking about it, I sort of arrange them by size so the little books don't get lost 😂