How to arrange our book collection?

[duchesse]

We're in the middle of having our bedrooms and upstairs insulated properly, which have meant emptying every room bit by bit and decanting into the corridor and other rooms. We have a ridiculously large number of books- several hundred in every room including lavatories, corridors, and up the stairs. I've discovered books I thought we had somewhere but some of the children may not have read yet. The children had many books in their rooms that they read years ago and did not pass on to their younger siblings.

My question is, how should I arrange the books now that I have a golden opportunity to rearrange everything? Should I for example arrange them by genre? The problem with that is that I can remember as a child being pleasantly surprised time and time again by random books I picked up in random places in the house. I think that children will read things when they are ready for them if they have open access to them. I have a sneaking suspicion that arranging them by genre might encourage the children to just keep reading within a genre.

In fact, unless we're talking about books written in the last 20 years (I think that modern authors are being marketed by genre and their writing edited/steered in that direction by publishers), are genres a good way of sorting?

What do you think? Shall I just go for the children getting their all-time favourites back and replacing the rest unsorted? To sort or not to sort?

This thread is making me quite excited at the thought of organising my book collection. Had a lovely afternoon in Waterstones yesterday making a mental note of all the books I want to buy. I don't whether it's just me but when I'm in a book shop I tend to immerse myself in a little fantasy world and forget my worries.

Very impressed at those of you who manage to organise the children's books, ours are just chucked on their bookcase with random piles scattered around the house. If I try to install any order in their room it lasts all of 2 minutes so I have given up trying!

Bonnie when I say children's books, I mean my own books from childhood (LM Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, etc)....I have them all close by on the same shelves so I can reach them easily...they get read more than most of the adult books on my shelves I am not ashamed to say!

We already have about half a shelf full of books for DD in the nursery (DD arriving any day now) - I can't resist popping into charity shops for a snoop if I think there's a chance of a bargain, so she already has a good collection of board books and other classics (Jill Murphy, Shirley Hughes, Brambly Hedge, Spot...I could spend more money on children's books than pretty much anything else, full stop!)

Gosh, couldn't cope if not by genre. Within genre either by century (literature and history) or sub topic (geography, theology and music). Within century or subtopic either by date (metaphysicals before restoration) or alphabetical (Wagner critics by name).

Prob is that helpful dsis is a librarian and attempts to bring library order.

And the books breed promiscuously and run all over the house.

And many of them are not on kindle. In fact most.

What happens when we downsize God knows.

I opt for some sort of vague order ie all poetry together, classics together, modern fiction etc but it is loose. I do like the visual affect of having, say, all my Penguin Classics together, but I make no attempt to do more than this. I feel this still allows for an element of serendipity as there are still plenty of books that seem to fall outside of any category and are therefore shelved rather randomly.

I do it by colour - saw it in a magazine once about 10 years ago and I love it. I used to do it alphabetically but I prefer it like this - there is a randomness to it but it's still ordered.

I read an article somewhere the other day where the author had categorised his books entirely on the back of whether he has managed to read them or not. Thereby shocking himself with how much worthy literature he owned that he'd never finished, or started!

I really don't like the idea of ordering using some sort of aesthetic principle. In my view books are principally for reading (and look good regardless!), so I order them in a way that's easy to find. Cookery books in the kitchen, reference in the hall grouped by topic, children's books alphabetically in the bookcases outside their room, and everything else in the den (which is lined with bookcases) arranged into Sci-Fi/Fantasy and everything else. Plus overflow!

We do a cull every year to keep things manageable, anything not read in that year goes unless one of us wants to read or refer to it again. Children's books used to have a 'in the attic for grandchildren' option when they were younger but now their books are pre-teen to young adult we only cull on quality (hence the overflow!).

I live in a one bedroom flat with my husband and our many books. I dream about the day when I have enough space for enough bookshelves to not shelve two books deep. I took photographs of the back rows which I have handy on my computer if I can't find a book I'm looking for - though, as we dip into the back rows and fail to put the books back, the reference is becoming less and less accurate.

I've no idea how others manage to part with books. I have to think carefully before getting rid of inadvertant duplicates... and yet I can't stop myself buying more either. Have visions of eventually being crushed by the weight of literary treasure as Harry found in the Lestranges vault with the multiplying treasure...

We are expecting our first child. So far, my mum has bought the baby one set of plain white baby grows, one set of 'hungry catepillar' vests (she knows me so well). DH and I have bought the baby a teddy and some books. You know, because those are the essentials! [bublush]

We already have a fairly extensive children's book collection as I am a big fan of childrens books. We just need to get our picture book collection a bit bigger.

I digress... our books are mainly organised by genre and size with serieses and authors together as much as possible (different height shelves mean sometimes an authors hardbacks and paperbacks are seperated), though sometimes books end up wherever there is space for them. I like the visual impression of organising by colour (DH's railway books practically are because most books on a particular region reflect that regions colours) and the serendipitous nature of finding unexpected reads would be nice.. but I just couldn't as I primarily see them in specific genres, and would struggle to find books if they weren't beside similar ones. Plus a lot of children's books have each book in the series a different colour... I couldn't possibly seperate a series up!

Also have piles of books from Christmas that still don't have a home and a shelf near me of books that are either new, or ones that I want to remember to read soon.

(Have organised DH's Doctor Who books by doctor then publication date)

A kindle does appeal to me because its a book related gadget (all kinds of geekery satiated there) but I can't think of any books that I wouldn't want a paper copy of. My mum and sister (who both have one now) say that kindle books are cheaper, but they mentioned the cost of buying the hunger games, and I bought them at Christmas for less than a £1 each from a charity shop...

Could do with the space it would free up of we'd be willing to get rid of real books as we got them digitally though. It's not likely to happen though.. is it?

I have reference books in one place sorted by subject, and cookery books in the kitchen.

I also still have about 10 boxes of books to unpack, but no shelves for them (yet). Novels will be completely higgledypiggledy when that's done.

I grew up in a house where there were books in every room - we actually had bookshelves in the bathrooms - including piles in the loos, like you. My dad kept the sci-fi in his study which was really the main extent of what sorting there was, and the only form of censorship my parents used was to put 'unsuitable' books on higher shelves. This is kind of what I'm aiming at.

DH and I agree that authors need to be together, preferably by publication date. Tall books to the ends of shelves, which does cause issues
Then there is a bit of genre sorting: cookbooks; art/coffee table; academic. DH insists that anything he considers 'airport books' be kept separate, same with 'real books' (classics, documentary type stuff). And there is a certain separation and grouping of my books vs. his. All ends up being a bit unruly with an undercurrent of attempted order!
If he would stop buying $2 1970s spy stories from the Rotary Bookarama we'd have much more space!

Size here too, in the main (tallest at each end, decreasing in size towards the middle), then author and publisher, as far as is possible.

The sitting room is where the old and nicely bound books are kept. Mass market and 'reading' copies of books in all other rooms. Children's books on bookstand and kinder box in the playroom, plus more in their bedrooms, and on a landing bookshelf. Cookery books in kitchen on another bookstand (we have lots of bookstands and troughs).

What I'd really like to try is one of those computer programmes where you can store all of your book information (enter ISBN or scan newer books).

I started doing that, MrsBovary. It's a nightmare. What you need is someone to do it for you, because I can pretty well guarantee that you simply won't have time to do it yourself - unless you have only 3 or 4 books!

I have thousands. If I'd started when I was 5 and been religious about adding every new book as I got it, then I'd be OK

i feel everyones pain!

hall landing, long bookcase with over-sized reference.

living room, fiction, double-shelved, alphabetical by author (A-approx L) with two shelves for reference (history/science/psychology) & bottom shelf for outsize coffee-table types (art/graphic novels/TV/film)
a couple of cubes on an IKEA shelving unit for theatre/design

My bedroom - fiction M-Z. Pop psychology and anything a bit risque

Ds's bedroom - boys books, alphabetical by author, outsize factual on bottom shelf.

DDs bedroom - mishmash of disarray that cannot be contained or ordered.

heritage books for prospective grandchildren, boxed and in storage.

cookery books slowly taking over kitchen.

pile of 'books to read' on kitchen windowsill and bedside table.

I think I need a cull.

I can't wait till we move and I get to put in built-in bookshelves and file it all by colour! Really in love with this idea for the longest time.

Don't think finding things will be a problem as I have a sort of sense memory of what the spine looked like, if that makes sense?

Used to do my novels by colour but the big problem for me was when one author would end up separated because the spines were different colours. After a while it upset me too much :o so I've gone back to generally alphabetical, with a bit of jiggling to allow for happy aesthetics!

Fiction alphabetical by author. Other books roughly sorted by subject, eg poetry, cookery, travel etc. I love the randomness of different styles and colours mixed together, and I want to be able to find a book reasonably quickly, so this works for me.

I would have all the kids books together and all the adults books together and other than that it doesn't matter to me but we don't have as many books in our house especially now ive got a kindle

We just moved house so had this wonderful dilemma.

Our books are shelved in rough categories (travel, language, social policy, fiction) but then at a certain point height and space take over as consideration.

I do try to keep the children's books vaguely in check. e.g. all of one series together, all the Roald Dahl together. They are in four different rooms of the house. I have too many books!

Yes you're quite right, Jux. The prospect of doing that seems like a huge, daunting task, and of course the barcode scanner wouldn't work for all the old books, and there are so many of them.
I'd begin with the children's books, probably, and try to rope teenage dd into helping. There are so many programmes out there it's difficult to know which is best.

Let me know which you plump for, would you?

All books still piled up along upstairs corridor in random piles at the moment. About to get worse as one more book shelf will have to be removed as part of the makeover of the heating system.

I've just bought 5 more bookcases. Only another 30 or so to go!

We have piles of books on the lower staircase so that we (specifically dd) remember to take some up every time she goes up, but she forgets, and to be fair so do I. It just occurred to me today to use the edge of the stairs as bookcases. I have no idea why I hadn't thought of that before!

My brother just sent me 5 books from my wish list for my birthday. I am getting closer and closer to that moment when I buy a Kindle.

We arrange books roughly by suitable reading location.

Books for homework are by ds's desk.
my textbooks have their own shelf, but mostly sit on the kitchen table.
cookbooks in the kitchen.
detective fiction and horrible histories/science by the sofa - ds and I sit at opposite ends and read after school/uni.
short stories, Shakespeare and non-fiction that doesn't fit into any other category lives in the bathroom.
Other fiction is in my bedroom or the living room.
ds has his own bookshelf in the living room and another in his bedroom. He also has a pile of current reading on his bedside table.
Dictionaries/reference books and books we are reading are piled up the side of the stairs, pretty much in the centre of the house.

Each bookshelf is arranged with unread books on the left, so if I need something new I know where to look. Some particular favourites have their own special place and are always returned there. For example, Tom Jones sits on the floor under my bed, next to my glasses case, Cold Comfort Farm is on a little tabletop shelf next to the telly.

Jux, that's what we do- it works very well. NothingwhatsoevertodowiththefactIcantfindanywheretoputthem