My name is Lisa, and I’m a book-a-holic.
When we moved into our house in Los Angeles, I prioritized installing floor to ceiling bookcases along one wall and corner of my office. I LOVE the shelves, which seemed, upon installation, to provide ample space for my ever growing personal library.
Wrong.
Now that all of my books have been unboxed, it’s clear that some will still have to go. So operation “Organize the Library” is underway. Despite repeated culling, I still have too many books and not enough shelf space. I have some difficult decisions ahead of me.
So I need YOU to weigh in to help me get some focus:
- What books do you “keep” long term?
- How do you organize your bookshelves (right now, I’m going alpha by author)? Sections? Genres? Free for all?
- Do you use an app to track your library? (I’m working on scanning all books that find a home here with Goodreads)
- Where do you donate books that you can’t keep?
To reward you for helping me to organize this mess, I’m running a contest. The prize is awesome: a copy of the beautiful new book Saint Junipero Serra’s Camino: A Pilgrimage Guide to the California Missions by gifted author Stephen J. Binz. In my endorsement for this book, I shared:
“Part hagiography of a courageous missionary, part honest historical reference, and part handy travelogue, Stephen Binz’s Saint Junipero Serra’s Camino is first and foremost a spiritual preparation and call to action in our own sharing of the Good News of the Gospel. With keen detail and deep spirituality, Binz encourages each of us to fully embrace our role in the New Evangelization by following in the footsteps of California’s spiritual giant, St. Junipero Serra. This Californian can’t wait to journey with Binz to discover Father Serra’s journey in bringing the faith to my home state and beyond!”
The good thing about this prize is that it will be like winning a little piece of California! And since I have two copies of this totally awesome book, you’ll be helping with my project by entering! So check out the Rafflecopter widget for a variety of ways to be a part of this contest.
I hate getting rid of books but when I do I donate them to the library. Some libraries host book sales a few times a year to raise funds for their educational programs. There is also a store called half price books. They buy/ sell books and its a double edged sword because you went in with 10 and you walk out with at least five titles. Last but not least, some parishes have lending libraries that will accept donations.
I sort by topic i.e. fiction, Biblical theology, Saints, liturgy, biographies, marriage, education, reference etc. Then we have four shelves just dedicated to children’s literature. I don’t put these in order because the kids are constantly in there and have a crazy methodology. Also I notice that your books are all vertical, I may be causing you to rethink getting rid of books but I stack some books horizontally to get more room. Works wonders!!!!!!
I have started to release the books that I just “never could finish” aka took me a long time to get to chapter 3 but I have to keep it because of sentimental attachment to the subject, time of life I received it, who gave it to me or who wrote it. Blah blah blah. I finally have to realize that there are some books that don’t speak to me but someone else could really enjoy it.
Elena, thank you so much for your suggestions! That horizontal suggestion is interesting. I’m losing a lot of usable space above the tops of the books… I purchased a few “expandable cabinet shelves” on sale yesterday and may try double decking some of the bigger shelves, but your suggestion is super helpful.
Use the Library Thing app.’ It jas great features, including barcode scanning. Librarything.com
I use it for personal and parish libraries.
I was in charge of reorganizing our parish library. I mostly used a topic/genre system, alpabetical by author within the topic. For biographies/saints, in abc order by the subject’s name/last name.
No classification scheme is perfect. You should be open to particular “quirks” of your collection or personal preferences. Have fun!
We have a small home library that I recently organized. I sorted into genres and age group (this might not be applicable to you, wink, wink!) Picture books, fiction was sorted into juvenile and young adult, science, history, art, religious (which was organized by smaller sections into scripture-related, hagiography, devotional, theological works, children’s and non-fiction religious). It’s not perfect as there are some.that defy categorization, but it’s helped create a sense.of order.
I just culled mine, too. I organize by topic: christology, Holy Spirit, Church History, Sacraments, Mary, etc. I am finishing my Master’s in Ministry so I am keeping all of those text books. Cast-offs are going to the “free” table at the back of church — or to an assisted living. I used to have a great contact in the form of a seminarian from the Philippines who collected books as such and shipped them off to a rather poor seminary in the Philippines. But alas that seminarian is no longer local. If I had the money I would ship the books to a seminary overseas or at least in Central or S. America.
Oh my, I am envious of the bookshelves you -do- have!
Mu husband and I moved twice between theology degrees – even if they might have been useful at a later point, we pared down to that which was most practical at a parish level (at the time we were both working in a parish) and a handful of extras.
Ours are divided by subject, similar as to how Cindy did. Much easier to find what I’m looking for, based on subject matter! And strangely, even though I’m not working in a parish anymore, the Code of Canon Law is frequently referenced!
The extra books that we had we donated to the diocese’s library, a religious order (we did the Companions of the Cross, their Chicago branch), and have a box we need to get to a Catholic bible college close by.