NP - How do you sort your books?

[Prashant Kumar]

At the moment I have approximately 500 books, and am moving to a rather
tiny one bedroom apartment in the city (from the same, though). What I'm
doing is entering every book into an excel spreadsheet I'm using as a
database, as I pack. The database has edition info (publisher, translator
etc), dewey numbers and I'm going to start putting down date of
acquisition. That way I can keep track of everything (like books on loan to
certain indigent acquaintances - I'm sure plisters know a few), and watch
my reading habits evolve. (Interesting because I can then put in code to do
things like identify interesting books by trawling the internet, price the
books and whatnot. I need to find the time to waste first though.)

I am rather young and I figure that if I can't prevent the coming
Bücherdämmerung I can at least forestall it.

P.

On 12 August 2012 22:15, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Because I sometimes actually have to go and hunt for a book,  and because
> I have several thousand books,  I try to keep my organization simple and
> useful.   I have three rooms of books - one room for fiction, , one for
> non-fiction and one for both but these are newer.   Fiction is organized
> alphabetically by author,  non-fiction by subject-matter.   Each room has
> its own set of books and is arranged separately - the books in one room go
> from A-Z and in the next room from A-Z - no split in the middle - the M - R
> section is not in a separate room.  (heh) .  Non-fiction is by
> subject-matter - old history is in one room and the rest is in the shared
> room for newer books.  Books get rotated into the old book rooms (stacks?)
> as the new book room (office/den?) fills up (over and over).
>
> There is one exception - classics and special books go in a separate
> bookcase - all Pynchon books are there,  for instance,  as well as
> Faulkner,  Nabokov and some others dear to my heart.
>
> All this happened because my library room filled up and so I took the
> older books and put them in other rooms - then I arranged them - it took
> years. (heh)
>
> Moving?  Separate your books into fiction and non-fiction and then into
> old books and newer (or more frequently checked) books.  Then pack into
> boxes.  When you get where you're going unpack the newer books and put them
> into whatever order you want - alpha,  color,  size,  subject,  ? -  and
> shelve.  Leave the older ones until you have time.
>
> When I move or as I get older,  I'm going to trash most of these books -
> all the ones in the back rooms anyway.  I'm not young and  I don't want
> them crowding me out of some tiny space.  I don't want my kids to have to
> deal with all these which are mostly worthless anyway.
>
> Bekah
>
>
> On Aug 12, 2012, at 4:01 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
> >
> > Colors are very important to me. That's why it always takes so long to
> reorganize. Actually you have to live surrounded by your books to recognize
> the fitting patterns.
> >
> > On 12.08.2012 11:19, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
> >>
> >> Alphabetically? Hardly! I create nests along genre, color, nationality
> etc. To prevent this from becoming too sterile I place a good deal of book
> completely illogical and add some more or less meaningful installations
>  like, for instance, putting Ratzinger's book on Christian mysticism
> ("Schauen auf den Durchbohrten") in between an introduction to Voodoo and a
> photography book by Nobuyoshi Araki. One effect of this practice is that I
> fear removals (it always takes half a year to reorganize the library).
> Another one that my wife seldom finds a book without asking me. But that's
> OK: I need my personally designed library order to feel - at least a little
> bit - at home in this world.
> >>
> >> On 12.08.2012 10:21, Kris Williams wrote:
> >>> I start with genre, then alphabetically, then they get re-read, then I
> cross reference, after that I spill wine on some pages...next thing you
> know, Hemingway is sleeping with Platt, and Poe watches through a window.
>  Then I start over with genre...sigh...
> >>>
> >>> On Aug 12, 2012 12:34 AM, "Prashant Kumar" <
> siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> I've had to reorganise my collection recently and was idly wondering
> how plisters do it (if at all), and why?
> >>>
> >>> P.
> >>
> >
>
>
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