This won’t do for me, but Design Observer offers a fascinating insight into arranging books by color. One book arranger by color says it helps him discover new connections between books. I love the organization.
After reading this, I glanced at my three bookshelves … now they look messy because the colors clash with each other. The aqua of O’Reilly books, the burnt orange of an information architecture book, the reds of the Degunking series, the whites of many books with a diversity of font colors and types. You know what? Most of these books have white spines with colorful text.
I have the famous orange style book — yes, that’s Chicago Manual of Style. The black with red tops of Microsoft certification books. The books in my office cover mostly writing, reference, computers, business advice, and web design. The self-advice, comics, fiction, puzzles, literature, and non-fiction (large books with photos not pertaining to business) books live upstairs in the game room.
One shelf contains dictionaries, thesauri, style guides, and other references. Another contains the more frequently used web design, Internet and computer books. Marketing gets its own shelf as well as writing. One shelf is so short that I fit whatever books fit in there (the shelf can’t move as one shelf is permanent) — so it’s a mix. One shelf has recent arrivals, books needing reviewing, and books needing abstracting.
The tall bookshelf contains mostly techie books, notebooks from tech classes, software boxes, and a spattering of books from the other categories.
I also sort the books upstairs. Did I say I was an organized freak? I generally don’t keep fiction unless there’s something unique like an autograph or we simply loved the book. But I get fiction books from family and they pile up on one shelf as those won’t get read for a long time.
The bottom shelves hold the heaviest and tallest books. History of baseball uniforms, Broadway books about a songwriter, shows, or history. US and world history. These typically stand tall and include photos.
A top shelf gets to have fun holding all of our Baby Blues, Far Side, Non Sequitur, Dilbert, and other comic-related books. Parenting books rule one shelf. Religion takes up a shelf and one-half. Puzzles and general advice get along in one row. Cookbooks have a few college textbooks rooming with them. Professional training books live alone on a bottom shelf.
And how do you organize your books or don’t you?
As an anal retentive person, I loved reading your post, and was so happy that you asked for us to share how we organize our books. I ran right over her to comment! 🙂
When I was younger and didn’t have as many books, I organized them in alphabetical order by author’s last name. Now, with hundreds of books spread in four rooms, I can’t do that. (“Where are the N’s?”)
In my office, I have a bookshelf that’s divided into many sections. Each section is its own category: business self-help books I’ve read, business self-help books I haven’t read, accounting/marketing/bus org reference books, true reference books (dictionary, thesaurus, Bible dictionary), English literature books (but Jane Austen gets a whole shelf to herself), website design and programming, and my current favorite, proud-to-display fiction books (Harry Potter, Christine Harris, Kim Harrison).
In my husband’s office, I have a shelf of books that are unread (I really should stop buying books!), and they are organized by size and genre. Go figure.
In my bedroom, I have shelves of books based on genre. Writing and grammar on one shelf, OED on two shelves, metaphysical books on one, one shelf devoted to women’s and men’s studies and parenthood (it all seems to fit to me!), and then finally my shelf of unread self-help books.
In the storage area are all the “other” books: books we’ve read but can’t bear to part with and that don’t fit anywhere else. These are usually series or multiple books by authors (Barbara Michaels, David Eddings, Steven King, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, Mercedes Lackey, and so on). These are grouped by hardback on bottom (for bottom-heaviness on a cheap set of shelves), and then just where the series of books will fit on the other shelves (can’t break up a series!).
Whew! Who knew I had so much to say about how I organize my books!
Thanks, Meryl, for starting this topic. It’s fun!