For those bibliophiles on my friends list

[madbaker]

...which is most if not all of you.

A bit ago someone made fun of me for how I organize my books. My method is that used by Chevy Chase in Caddyshack to compare against other golfers - by height.

Strictly speaking, I organize my books by (approximate) height and alphabetically by author. I do it that way not because I'm obsessive-compulsive (although to a degree I am, of course), but because it maximizes the number of books I can store on a bookcase. I have rarely had enough bookcases that I can shelve inefficiently...

So, a poll. How do you organize your books? I'm referring to intra-shelf organization; I have different shelves for my cookery books and my fiction, so "subject" doesn't count.

What I'm reading: Ursula Vernon, Digger vol. II

Comments

Depends on the subject

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

Some subjects (art and costuming, for example) I organize by era. Others, I organize by subclass (needle arts breaks down to quilting, lace, knitting, etc.) Others is just by author.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

The last time they were organized (previous house) we did it alpha, but some were vertical (if large) and others were stacked horizontally (if short). This seemed to work very well.

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

By Weight.

Heavy books on the bottom shelves, light ones on the top.

This keeps the bookcases from tipping over.

[misagillian.livejournal.com]

I have separate bookshelves for my hardcovers and my softcovers as well as for different genres. Within a genre they are alphabetical. I have a separate bookshelf for books I've borrowed from others so that I can remember (in theory) to return them to their owners. :)

[misagillian.livejournal.com]

They are alphabetical by author, that is.

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

1. by room
research in the living room
fiction (mostly) in the office
fluffy stuff that I probably will give away when I 'm done with or stuff I havent read yet in the bed room

2. one bookcase is dedicated to cookbooks (Iliving room)
the other two are clustered loosely by subject ("primary sources/translations", "womens studies and everyday life", "artifacts, etc", "science and technology", "horses", "gardening", etc)

3. the three office bookshelves, have the fiction alpha by author, and the non fiction by vague subject as well "crafty how to", "biography" (sub lumped by period, ie civil war, WWII, etc), birdbooks and travel, etc. This is also where I keep all my magazines that I want to keep (I'm about due for a purge though...its cutting into my book space!)

works for me!

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

Alpha by author, and if possible and if a series, by sequence in the series.

[deathbytamarind.livejournal.com]

How does "all over the fuckin place" sound? I have shelves of books (mostly non-fiction baseball), books in my backpack (currently reading 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America), books on my floor (my textbooks for my English class), books everywhere.

[ptigris.livejournal.com]

All is by height. Heavies on bottom. Authors together (but no alpha). If a height/weight section is large enough, internally by genre.

[nibuca.livejournal.com]

Mainly, topically.

Fiction:
5 shelves.
Top shelf: Authors I love and have 10+ books by them
2nd shelf: Authors I love but only have 1-2 of their books
3rd & 4th shelf: Authors I love and have 3-8 books by them
5th shelf: Random books that where I groove on the concept of the book but the author didn't gel it well enough to rank as a great author. I can't get rid of the book because the concept intrigues me.. but I didn't like the writing well enough to invest more in that author. Also includes books you "should have because they're classics"

I ruthlessly cull these from time to time. If I don't love it or can't remember what it's about, it's got to go. I refuse to decorate in "SCA eclectic".


SCA/History:
4 shelves.

Top Shelf: Weaving, string arts, History books, Heraldry
2nd shelf: Costume books: 14th - 16th
3rd shelf: Costume books: before 14th, general "survey" costume books and "bad costume books" they're bad but some have good points.. eg: the Peacock book is good for showing lots of pictures to newcomers.. but horrible when you actually get into the details of the costume.
4th shelf: Dying, silk painting, painting interpritation, shoes

Cooking & Media:
4 shelves.
Top shelf: Modern cook books, period cookbooks
2nd shelf: CDs/DVDs
3rd shelf: Japanese history & beading
4th shelf: course books from college

[tsgeisel.livejournal.com]

I generally don't. Actually, what little organization I have is done via the "clumping" method. Authors (Pratchett) or topics (cookbooks) get clumped together in a particular area. And then, within that area, I do tend to organize by height.

But I have no particular rhyme or reason to how the clumps are organized.

[mad-duchess.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, it's almost entirely by genre blocks for me, with some division based on subject within the genre. So for example, in the History genre is have subject blocks like general history overviews, biographies, histories of specific events (is there a word for that--similar to biographies, but of events, not people?), cultural blocks (all my viking stuff is mostly in one place).

If I happen to have multiple books by the same author in the same genre, for example, Douglas Preston books in the action/adventure genre, I tend to arrange them by publication date. But I'll split up an author's books if they publish in different genres--for example, I put Douglas Preston's non-fiction stuff over in a different genre block...

[farmount.livejournal.com]

A blend of both is what works for me.

The bulk of my collection is mass-market paperbacks, almost all of which is SF/Fantasy but there is a sprinkling of nonfiction, porn, and humor as well. The mass-market books are all organized alphabetically by author.

The trade paperbacks have a separate section of the house, and are organized by topic. Thus, there is the fiction section, the nonfiction section, the porn section, the religion section. These books within the sections are grouped together by author but otherwise organized by height.

The hardcovers have two groupings: fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is alpha by author, nonfiction is roughly grouped together by type (i.e. books relating to horses, books relating to cats, etc.)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

For fiction, it's separated by pocket-size and larger, then by author (or editor of an anthology), and title, although some series volumes are grouped by series and series order when I do a shelf-check.

For non-fiction, it's subject all the way. For example, in the "language and linguistics" shelves, books on specific languages are separated from those on lingusitics generally, with the former organized by language family and the latter by field (e.g., cognitive lx, syntax, discourse analysis, historic lx, etc.). There are some special circumstances, for example books on Welsh topics are separated out and then organized topically within that grouping (history, archaeology, literature, biography, etc.) separately from the more general sections on history, archaeology, literature, biography, etc. I also have mixed-topic "oversize" shelves, although the proportion of sizes works out that pretty much the bottom row of each shelf is for oversize.

[seamoose.livejournal.com]

Okay, make me doubt my sanity... This is the same basic way that I do my shelves.