Bibliophiles! A little help/advice.

[Behind the Aegis]

I am currently having to take an inventory of my personal library. I have almost 500 books. I just met with a carpenter to have a special bookcase built. Once that happens, I will be arranging my books in one place. My questions are:

-- how would you arrange your library? (I'm thinking of groupings like politics, religion, hobbies, languages (almost 100 books in 27 languages) and such. )

-- are there any apps or programs that I can use (free is best, but not necessary) to catalogue my books?

Thanks!

[applegrove]

1. You can read 27 languages?

[LearnedHand]

2. There are apps for cataloguing physical books

They typically include barcode readers and/or the ability to search the book in databases. Try googling terms like “catalogue physical books” for app ideas. It sounds like a huge job! Good luck with it.

[murielm99]

3. Use the Dewey Decimal system.

[The Roux Comes First]

4. It Seems to Me a Very Personal Thing

Where does one fit on the scale of OCD, for example. How many besides you will be accessing these books with any regularity? Are there children in that group?

For what purpose(s) will you pull books off the shelves, and for how long?

I have something in the way of 1,000 books here now, not counting 500 or so cookbooks, after casting off an equal number or more when we down-sized during Covid. I've always tolerated a fairly high degree of chaos in my resources (wife not so much!), but I find it hard to imagine a rigid library-like, DDS frame for a home library. There are crude groupings on my shelves, music, gardening, hiking/mountaineering, movies, etc., but I don't treat it as a reference library. Sometimes I can't go straight to a book I am thinking of.

And a visit from a couple granddaughters over the weekend that left children's books, which had all (100+) been nicely sequestered in a large basket scattered from one end of the house to another, was a valuable reminder how we can overestimate our control.

Good luck with your project!

[electric_blue68]

5. Roux had some good questions. I love books. Me, I'd go for a loose grouping by subjects.

Good luck!

[eppur_se_muova]

6. If you use Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress system, shelving books in number order will automatically

put them in topical order. However, either one is kind of a complex business to get into, and there are other variations as well. Check out the last "page" or so of https://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/03/17/dijalog.html

I have well over a hundred shelf-feet of books and they're sadly largely unorganized, following frequent relocations from state to state. Many of them are ordered by size (by force of necessity) and when I read them, not topic. I tend to keep truly professional career books segregated from other topics -- most of the former stay in my office, but not all, particularly if older works. I librarian I once worked for told me she keeps even her childrens' books sorted by DD; I've never felt the effort was worth the payoff. But I do need to put movable labels -- possibly on bookends -- to mark which topics are kept where, when that applies.


***ETA*** Since you're having your own shelves built, remember that equally spaced shelves may be the worst way to go ! I have all the biggest, heaviest books on the lower shelves, small paperbacks on the highest -- just in case the bookcase is ever tipped out of balance, it's less likely to fall. Try sorting your books by size -- you will have lots of certain standard sizes -- before choosing how tall the space between shelves should be. You will probably want one fixed shelf, a little below center, for stability, and the rest movable. Again, big boys on the lower shelves to lower the center of gravity. I even had two-tiered shelves, with the lower shelves much deeper than the upper ones, for large folio-type books etc.

P.S. I once read of an artist who sorted his books by the colors of their spines ! Visually impressive, but hard to search unless you have a strong visual memory.

[Coventina]

7. My personal library is done in Dewey Decimal

It took me forever, so you might not want to the route I did.

I looked up every book for the official DD number.

Most of the entries I could find through the Library of Congress website search (it's part of the book's record, even though LOC has their own numbering system).


https://catalog.loc.gov

For the remaining 30--35% of books that did not have the DD number in the LOC search, I used this really helpful website:

https://www.librarything.com/mds

Enter the book's title in the (small) search field in the upper right-hand corner and it will either give it to exactly, or give you examples of books on the same subject and what their DD# is.

Cumbersome, but I've been really happy I invested the time.


On edit:
PS: I wrote the DD# on the inside of each book, so I would never need to look it up again.

[chia]

8. LibraryThing or Libib

https://www.librarything.com

https://www.libib.com

Happy cataloguing!

[ms liberty]

9. I have at least that many, scattered everywhere in the house.

I'm planning bookshelves though and I'll arrange them like my last. General subject groupings for all non fiction, then alphabetical. Fiction separated by genre, then alpha by author, and series are shelved in order first to last.

[NNadir]

10. Most books published in recent times have on the publication leaf...

...i.e. the Library of Congress classification code. I'd start there and if it is missing in a particular book, I'd put close to a similarly topical book that has such a classification.

This said, I probably have well over a thousand printed books, and many hundreds or thousands of books in an electronic format on disk, and while their generally located by topic, I kind of wing it.

[electric_blue68]

11. Just musing about my books, and storing them...

Until my early mid 40's I had this (not tons of books) about 7+ ft tall, 14" inch wide book case. Maybe near 75 Science Fiction books, some hard cover, many paperback, a bunch of Nature, Landscapes photography books, art and crafting books. A science book or three. A few children's books for their illustrations being a artist, and occasional B&W illustrator. So I guess I had close to 125 all togther.

When I moved I lost about 60% or more of them along with the bookcase. : (

Then I bought, or found a smaller version of it! About ?3 ft high, 10+" inches wide. Very occasionally added a few hardcovers in the "The Art of _________" variety: Movie production scenery ideas, costumes, props, etc .Great fun, interesting variations before what was chosen.
I got this metal (constructed of metal rods) ?50's style one from my parents.

The next place I lived; a few yrs in someone left a library rolling cart outside our building (we had a green area & fence between us and the corner building). I took it in. Cleaned it, but wasn't very dirty - I probably would left it otherwise. Rolled it bac out, and spray painted it cerulean blue, and painted flowers on it's sides after back inside.

One move later only 20 or so books. Waaay less space. Some on closet shelves. I think I'll put the hardcovers laying flat on top of my pretty long bureau. It'll be nice to see them.

I love looking when they show up on line the book nooks on either side of a cushy sitting area by a window all built in. Then there are the beds with a library shelving built around, and above them, usually set on a low platform.

And I just remembered the couches w bookshelves built on the sides, and behind in the back! Not seen those in a good while.
Fun solutions! Imho. Yay, books!

[LogDog75]

12. Keep it simple

I'd suggest using an Excel spreadsheet.

The nice thing about using it is you can decide what information you want to capture such as title, author, date published, ISBN, etc., or anything else you want. Once you complete your list you can sort it anyway you want.

As for how to display the books, I'd suggest alphabetically by genre.

[Figarosmom]

13. Dewey Decimal or i'ddo

Fiction/ non-fiction.

Fiction in alphabetical order by author
Non-fiction by categories

I've often thought about having different rooms for Fiction and Non-fiction. Having the Fiction room have nice comfy chairs and sofa with ottomans. The Non-fiction would have a big reading table and straight chairs. And a globe of course and a large unabridged dictionary on a pedestal.

[hunter]

14. My wife and I have thousands of books organized loosely by our interests.

Science fiction here, science there, art books another place, children's books on lower shelves, gardening books...

E-books possibly saved our home from collapsing.

I don't know if we'll be able to downsize before these books before they become a burden to our children.



My parents, who also accumulated many books, managed to do it, mostly because they were constrained to the size of the shipping container they could afford when they moved back to California.

I've got books that belonged to my great grandparents.