Keeping Your Personal Library Well Stacked: How to Organize and Categorize Your Books

I have too many books. Most years, at one point or another, usually around the time of the big St. Louis Book Fair, I consider getting rid of a lot of them. Sometimes I go as far as packing some of them up in a box, which sits down in the basement until I dig back through it looking for some long forgotten tome and somehow the books end up back on the shelf. I used to be a much more voracious reader than I am now, collecting books at the rate of one or two a week. Now I usually just go down to my local bookstore, (which has a nice coffee shop and leather chair), order an espresso and curl up with a good book in the corner, near the counter. The bookstore is fairly large with aisle after aisle of books all categorized by subject. I have a special little spot in the garden section that is rarely used. That’s where I hide the latest edition of whichever book I’m currently reading. Saves me time having to locate the book the next time I go in and I can read it for free. Shameful yes, but I do occasionally purchase one and then I feel exonerated.

It just seems that once I buy a book, I sort of establish a personal relationship with it and don’t want to part with it. I’ve also quit loaning books out to friends. It’s exciting to share, but I’ve lost quite a few books when they move out of town, lose them, or something else happens and I don’t get them back.

I also have a lot of old books that look at me longingly from their dusty shelves. I still have the original set of Golden Book Encyclopedias I got when I was about five years old and another set of Encyclopedias that date back to 1905. I have a book about World War II that my brother lifted from the rare books section of the public library downtown when he got back from Vietnam, and that was some thirty-five years ago. I probably should return it. So a lot of times your personal collection of books is also a reflection of your life.

While some people want bookshelves to be very neat and minimal, others prefer their books to be wall-to-wall or even strewn haphazardly around the house. A friend of mine, who used to be a teacher, had books and papers literally knee deep and scattered all over his apartment. He always seemed to be able to dig through a pile and find what he needed. Once, when I commented that this all seemed a little disorganized and messy, he simply replied: “You ought to see my brain.” It all boils down to personal preference and whether you need to organize or categorize.

There are several ways you can organize your books: You can group them by genre or interest. If you have a large number of books on the same subject, group them together and offset with a picture or item relating to the subject. You can group them by height. Put all of your tall books together, and then use accessories to fill in the empty spaces. You can stack them in alphabetical order. This is the easiest way to locate a book without doing a lot of searching for it. One of the neat things that you can do is buy custom bindings for you favorite books. These binding are available for $18 to $90 and can extend the life of your book by up to twenty years.

When you are shelving your books, you should stack them either vertically or horizontally. Rotate them every once in awhile. This will keep the bindings from getting loose over time. Try to distribute the weight, putting the heavier books on the bottom shelves. You can paint the backs of the shelves the same color as your room for a more uniform look, or get some foam backing and paint that. You can even cover it with some nice cloth.

There are also places around the house that you can accessorize with books. Of course you can place a large book on the coffee table, but you can also put them next to chairs, to prop up a lamp by the bedside, or place them on mantles or windowsills. Words of caution though, keep them in a dry place. Nothing is worse that mold growing on your books as I found out when I opened a box of books that had been stored in the basement for some time.

If you find you still have too many books after all the organizing, it’s only a few months until the next book fair comes to town.