Note – the authors of this article have written a book about how to organize your life. They categorize their advice by personality types – Smarts, Organics, Classic and Fun Pixies, etc.
From Read it Forward:
The two of us have spent a lifetime surrounded by books. There are literally books in EVERY room of our parents’ house—from a large paperback collection in the basement (!) to our childhood books in the attic to others even in the dining room. We’ve also spent 10 years curating all manner of libraries owned by various Pixie organizing types and we haven’t seen a library yet that we haven’t improved with a little Pixie Magic. First, only keep books that either have meaning, are actively read, produce happiness, or frankly look good on display. Then play around with them using some of our great Pixie tips. Once you take these steps, your books will become both objets d’arts and utilitarian fountains of knowledge.
. . . .
Logical types—Smarts, Classic Structures, and Fun Structures—tend to keep books because they’re manifestations of their achievements. So when pruning, you guys need to make sure each book still mirrors what you want to project to the world. If this only purges one or two books, then focus on paperbacks. They’re meant to be recycled unless they’re out of print or still used. They’re literally disintegrating on your shelf as you read this. If our incredibly stubborn, Smart Structure, bibliophile father can start to consider donating his basement paperback library, then it’s time for you as well. If the paperback pathway fails, hire an organizer to make you justify the logic of holding on to paperbacks you can get online or didn’t even like when you read them. Donate hardcovers you don’t care about anymore or sell that textbook you’ve never referenced in 20 years. Let that poor neglected book be loved by someone, man!
Sentimental types—Organics, Classic Freedoms and Fun Freedoms—tend to keep books as reminders of the past, like old friends. Let’s face it, it’s hard to dump friends! Keep the golden ones (you know who they are) and get rid of the riff-raff. We assure you that tossing a book is much easier than dumping an actual friend. If this method fails, invite your most judgmental Classic or Smart friend over to make you justify every sentimental item in your library. Items you can’t let go of, even after being friend-shamed, should go in a “Later Box” in deep storage for 3, 6, or 12 months. Then without looking inside, keep whatever you miss from the box and donate the rest. C’mon, you forgot they even existed!!
. . . .
While it’s much easier to style a half empty bookcase, it’s not impossible to make one that’s bursting look a lot better. It’s a matter of putting like with like, a few pops of contrast here and there to break up the long line of books and matching frames for your photos to lend cohesion to a varied collection. The only idea you need to let go of is alphabetizing unless, of course, your book collection rivals your local library and you utilize your books on a regular basis. In which case, ask your local librarian for advice! If you’re like most folks, though, Pixie advice should suffice.
Link to the rest at Read it Forward
Here’s a link to Organize Your Way: Simple Strategies for Every Personality
For the record, PG is not any sort of pixie, organizational or otherwise. He doesn’t recall ever being or aspiring to be the least bit pixielike
Of course, as Mrs. PG will attest, PG is not terribly fascinated with the organization of physical objects.
The contents of PG’s computer, however, are a paragon of intelligent organization, his secret well-ordered life. However, even his secret life contains no pixies.
Books on shelves… what survived the cullings, things I want to read again, or references I may use (these gradually get culled, nearly all my Japanese history and language stuff is gone).
Also on shelves is everything I can’t replace with ebooks (fiction a little too old and not popular enough to be re-released in digital formats). I suppose I could send them off to one of the destructive scanners (they cut up the book to scan and destroy the carcass once finished, so its just a format change rather than copying). I may end up doing that with a few well-loved favorites.
As for digital shelving, its all in big folders on my computer, with no system at all. Books to read on devices I open and save in Calibre, where they all live in one big directory list.
I do keep nonfiction sorted by genre and my pulp collection is roughly sorted by genre and generally in folders by title (I do plan to go through someday and sort all the loose copies into their folders).
Books on desk: what I’m currently working out of. Books in shelves beside desk: academic monographs I’m currently using. Books in shelves on wall with window: books for general reading or fiction-book research; large foreign language books. Books in ladder/chair shelf: Soviet history and WWI origins (because they fit there and it’s easy to remember). Books on every other flat space in my bedroom and office: books I’ve read/will finish reading/have not found space for elsewhere.
Dewey Decimal. Why reinvent the wheel?
But I have never done that. Perhaps, one day, when I’m rich, I can hire an MLS to organize, catalog, and shelve my dead-tree collection. 🙂
My system works for me. Two main categories, fiction and non. Fiction alphabetical by author, non fiction by category. I donate the not SF, keep the SF I’ll reread that isn’t on my kindle. Sell what I won’t. I don’t care how it looks, thanks. Shelves of books can’t look bad, IMO.
…Styling bookshelves? Projecting an image? What about being able to find the book you want when you need it? Knowing X book is here, yes I have a copy, and being able to pull it off the shelf at will.
My bookshelves look hideous. Half full of TPB comics, all sitting horizontally, sectioned out by general topic and then size (big on the bottom, small on top, so I can see spines and not wonder where that tiny book on spinning went when digging in all the wool books). But seriously, if you want to “project an image’, just get one of those big wall vinyls and slap it up.
Organising paper books is intuitive. Line them up in a big space, shove them in a box, whatever you like.
I was hoping for something helpful with regards to ebooks. Organising them through a kindle (or kindke app) is like looking at a library through a pinhole. And yes, I do have collections but I still find it difficult to see what is there.
If you want to organize ebooks, use Calibre. Define all the genre categories you want.
And if you use a Kobo ereader, you can export those genres meaningfully to the ereader.
Warehouses… do they talk about warehouses of books? That’s our scale. And I am not kidding. Just the two-to-twenty extra copies of books the publishers sent for all of our published books and short stories in all the different countries over forty years takes up a third of one warehouse alone. So do they talk about an Amazon organizational system? (grin)
Only people as prolific as you two have that problem. The rest of us only dream of reaching that level of productivity.
Try alphabetical, by author…wait…:-)
Oh, to have some of your problems…
Have you considered signing actual duplicates and donating them to the next library sale? (I think it’s a good thing to keep at least one example of every printing, for reference in case some typesetter makes a King James error.)
Back in ancient times authors autrographed their copies and sold them at conventions, via newsletters or web sites, or direct by mail. Or gave them to people as gifts.
If you’re writing as a business, parking inventory forever isn’t much of a business plan.
We sell them and donate them all over the place. But even that takes time. Time I would rather be writing new stuff. (grin)
Hmm, you might have too many for my organizational system: horizontal!
My method: Toss the paper. I’m down to one shelf of physical books and I like it.
1. Have I read it? If yes, I leave it in a coffee shop or slide it in the library return slot with a post-it inside reading “donation”.
2. Am I ever likely to read it? If no, see #1.
3. For every ebook, I start a paper book. If I don’t like it, see #1. If I do like it, I finish it. Then see #1.
I have only ever kept one paper book after reading it. Idle Weeds, by David Rains Wallace.
My method: Where will this fit?
Pretty much mine.
I built two custom shelving units:one sized for paperbacks, the other for hardcovers.
Of course, all I read these days is ebooks so it really doesn’t matter how they’re shelved. I just need them out of the way.
Aside from the whole Pixie thing being a little twee, this sounds like a nightmare. I would never be able to find anything if I arranged my books to be artistic.
I don’t think these people actually read books. Or not many of them, anyway.
Organization is for the weak. 😉
It’s to save money.
About ten years ago I found $250 of duplicate hardcover books…
Right after that I organized all 5000 books.
“How to Organize Your Book Collection”
1. Loved it, looking for more by that writer.
2. will read it again!
.
.
X. Why did I buy this?
Z. watch for the writer’s name to never buy one of those books again!
I approve of how your organization system starts with numbers and finishes with letters.
Didn’t want to give you guys and gals a ‘fixed number’ of options to try to fill in. 😉
Autobiographical. (With apologies to John Cusack.)
Dan