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Post by bluefrog on Jul 14, 2009 11:43:42 GMT -5
I have hundreds and hundreds of them, on shelves, mostly, wherever they fit. Many of the paperbacks are shelved two volumes deep. There are five--four small and one big--bookshelves in the bedroom, and more in the "man cave." Four of them are moderately tidy; the rest are utter disasters. This makes it hard to remember if we actually have a particular book, or not.
I'd like to weed out the duplicates (and stop buying them!) and be forced to go through the whole shebang and cull stuff I don't really want to read again. DH has an easier time deciding that than I do, but he doesn't know a system for keeping track, either.
Is there a computer-based method for keeping track of books that someone could recommend? What works? I'm a bit desperate, here.
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Post by Peach on Jul 14, 2009 12:07:00 GMT -5
I have no suggestions for a computer-based book inventory program but I can tell you how I culled our hundreds of books this week. I started by separating DH's books from mine, which was fairly easy as his are all about airplanes and collecting depression glass. With a few thrown in about dinosaurs... All these I carted into a separate room where I am setting him up with his very own area (so his stuff is not spread throughout the house and he can "see" how much he has -  ). It was VERY tempting to just freecycle lots of his books but one thing I have learned from this site is that it is important that he make those decisions. (As of right now, he is keeping all of them  ) As for "my" books, I just quickly started pulling out books I no longer am interested in or are outdated or I have already read. I only kept those for which I have a current interest. Then I listed them on freecycle and all (about 150) were gone within hours. Before this purge, all our books were in overflowing bookcases in the LR/DR. They were a cluttered, dusty mess that was impossible to keep clean and neat. Now, only my books are kept in the LR on 1/2 of a bookcase. The remaining bookcases will be moved to other rooms - probably to hold DH's books - out of sight but neat. |
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Post by southerngirl on Jul 14, 2009 12:14:24 GMT -5
I'm in the process of culling books and want to re-organize mine. I have the double stacked mass market paperbacks too. At my last home I actually had organized bookshelves and would LOVE to get back to this again. Most of the books I want to keep are useful and/or interesting nonfiction -- i.e. cookbooks, vintage pop culture reference, etc. When my books were organized, they were organized similar to a library -- fiction alphabetical by author, and nonfiction together by topic (i.e. music reference together, movie reference together, dog books together, etc.). This worked great and is what I plan to do here.
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Post by puppybox on Jul 14, 2009 12:25:22 GMT -5
I have gotten rid of lots of books slowly, selling any I could and giving away the rest. my criteria for keeping books is no longer did I enjoy the book? but -will I want to read this again and -is it replaceable. So, I loved Memoirs of a geisha and will want to read it again in a year or 5 BUT its replaceable so byebye. Now I only have 7 full bookshelves and none double deep. I have a lot of weird books since I think I can't replace them. my point is REDUCE.
first though:
1)SORT- group like with like. by subject. fiction, non fiction, particular subsets of both. make a seperate pile for books you haven't read/only half read. once I realized I had 45 books i was meaning to read in my spare time (an none were fast reads) I realised that it was ridiculous. I got rid of ones I can replace.
2)then reduce.
I find I don't have so many now that they need too much of a system other than fiction and non fiction and kids.
get a dust mask/wear a wet bandana /stuff tissue up your nose. I'm NOT KIDDING.
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louise
New Member
Joined: September 2008
Posts: 96
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Post by louise on Jul 14, 2009 12:38:47 GMT -5
There are a fair few websites that let you build an online catalog of your books and double up as social networking too. I don't use any of them myself yet but a quick google bought up this list drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/online_personal_book_cataloging.htmI believe some of them also let you use a barcode scanner to speed the process up rather than entering each one manually but it's not something I've looked into yet. ETA - I just looked at librarything.com as I remember a friend talking about it recently. Once you've built up your catalog with them you can even check it on your cellphone. Seems like a great way of checking if you've already got a book before buying a duplicate copy! |
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Post by canna on Jul 14, 2009 12:41:26 GMT -5
Lots of books. I have sooo many books by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Capote, Wharton, Frank Lloyd Wright, and many books about rock stars, and many more!
I have them arranged by author. Most in paperback. Have had them for many years. So now, I'm starting to read them again, and will now donate each paperback when finished. It's not easy beause I like those authors, but dusty. If I see a paperback I have in a hard copy volume, I'll take it and then donate the paperback. Well that's not really lessening the number. I also have a big collection of Alice In Wonderland books; but that collection is a keeper!. None of my books are duplicates. They are on various shelves in bedroom and frontroom, kept in the bookcases not stacked anywhere else.
I constantly have to keep myself from looking at the book sections in stores and especially resale shops (where I have and still plan to donate the paperbacks as I finish them). And none of them are in boxes. The ones I had stored in boxes were all sorted and donated.
But, it is nice to select one of them to read again. So, they are organized and all in view.
I've mentioned my "somewhere else" type of sorting all kinds of things. I'll take a box of stuff somewhere else, not the room it's in. Outside, or in another room, maybe even the garage or bathroom! and sit THERE and SORT. Why, don't know? but it helps me to take it out of the room and then look. One box at a time.
A good fiction book I liked is "The Shell Seekers" by Rosamunde Pilcher.
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Post by fireweed on Jul 14, 2009 12:54:08 GMT -5
One thing I've started to do is collect the books I don't want anymore and bring them to a used bookstore. There I get 1/2 of their resale value to use toward more used books. That way I get less books than I get rid of but it's stuff I want and it's a little free shopping fun.
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Post by missjean on Jul 14, 2009 14:45:38 GMT -5
For nonfiction, I grouped them by topic. I culled them by use (for cookbooks) and handiness (I kept only a few how-to books). When I had a lot more books than I do now, I used to inventory them on a regular spreadsheet or a Word document with columns: Author, Title, Subject. If you have a lot of books to sell and they're in good condition, you might want to try this: cash4books.net/index.php?ref=71545I read about it in Woman's Day magazine. Last summer I sold over $100 worth, including a textbook that the university bookstore wouldn't buy back. You just type in the ISBN to see what price they'll pay and print off a shipping list and shipping label. If you don't have a PayPal account (I don't), they'll send you a check. |
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Post by paperpiler on Jul 14, 2009 17:05:32 GMT -5
You can catalog your books at librarything.com. It's a really interesting site--it picks up your book by title or author name, pulls the info from amazon and the Library of Congress, and voila, you have your catalogue of the books you own. You can sort and search your own list and it'll give you similar titles to read and people who read what you're reading. There's lots you can do at the site.
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Post by clutterfree on Jul 14, 2009 17:06:23 GMT -5
All My Books at www.bolidesoft.com/allmybooks.htmlis a great program. I don't get any commission for recommending it or anything, but I work for a company that has written articles promoting their software, and it's all awesome. They're a great little company. And you can download the program and play with it before you buy it, to make sure it's right for you. Having said that, I don't personally use the program because I know off the top of my head if I have a book. I only keep books that at are truly special to me in some way. I can't recommend this highly enough! I had SO many books for SO many years. It was sacriliege to get rid of them. But then I changed my attitude a couple of years ago when my journey away from a lifetime of varying degrees of squalor began. I had to. Even then, the books were one of the last things I tackled. I've been a Star Trek fan since the early '70s when I was small. And when the novels started coming out around 1980, I started buying them and reading them. I was in love! It was my escape. I had accumulated quite a number by the time I started getting them from the library instead of purcasing more. I kept them all these years. When I decided to change my house and change my life, I really took the idea of letting go of past things to make way for the future to heart. I did the dumpster thing, and made such huge strides. About a year and a half later, I made the final big steps to be squalor-free. But the books were something I just kept stuffing onto the shelf, ableit neatly. About 6 months ago, I was looking at the shelf and I realized that it was holding me back. My shelf was full of my past with no room my future. It didn't reflect who I am now, but who I was. So I handled every book, remembered how great it felt to buy it and read it, and decided if it was something really special enough to take up space in my life now. I kept about 7 or 8 books--out of dozens--because those specific books held a special meaning for me. I donated the rest to our local library. I also went through all my other books, and dispensed with most of them in the same way. I have many non-fiction books that I do use regularly for reference and those now occupy prime shelf space. I also have a small number of novels that I love. I have empty space on my bookshelves for the first time, ever. It's a wonderful feeling. A big step in allowing myself to part with all those books I'd kept and dusted and piled and sorted and MOVED WITH for years was the realization that if I felt a sudden manic urge to read one, there is always the library, a bookstore, half.com or eBay! You can find almost anything these days, if it's not readily available at the library or a bookstore! But I know in my heart, I'll never resort to that. There are too many books I haven't yet read to take up my reading time. In order for me to clean and clear my house out when I did, I had to get rid of lots of stuff. It wasn't easy, but it changed my life. The books were something that was so important to me growing up--they're how I avoided family problems and other issues--so I really put off dealing with them. I had been out of squalor for well over a year before I could deal with the books because of the meaning they have for me. I'm a writer. When I was a kid who wanted to be a writer, books were like magical things to me. I think that was part of the reason I couldn't part with them. I am so glad I did, though. It was a bit emotional, leaving those old friends at the library. But now I know that someone will buy them in the library sale, someone who really wants to read them and enjoy them like I did. It was a completely freeing and liberating experience. |
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Post by paperpiler on Jul 14, 2009 17:11:38 GMT -5
As far as organizing, I have two five shelf bookshelves in the LR and one three shelf bookshelf in the BR.
The one five shelf has cookbooks on one shelf, self-help books on another, business/reference books on a third, and various other nonfiction on the other two shelves, including an almost full row of women's books with their stories. They give me inspiration. :-)
The other five shelf is all fiction, sorted by mass market paperbacks (double stacked on one shelf), hardcover, etc.
The bookshelf in the bedroom is all books in my field of work.
The separation of work unit, fiction unit and non-fiction unit works really well for me, but I realize that everyone may not have the space to keep three bookshelves. For me, I would have rather given up other furniture space than given up my shelves after I had gotten rid of a lot of books I didn't want.
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Post by chakraverte on Jul 14, 2009 19:57:01 GMT -5
For me, this was a big problem too. It took a few years...and this might not work for you... but here's what I did.
First, I sorted them by color. Yup, color. That way, I wasn't wasting time with trying to find "the perfect" place for it. Is it red? It's in the red pile. Is it blue? It's in the blue pile.
As I sorted by color, I picked out books I definitely knew that I wanted to get rid of.
I put them back on the shelf. It looked nice. Ta-da! I let that sit for a few months. Then I pulled out all the books that relate to work. I put those together. I let that sit.
It was easier for me to read the book spines when they were by color. I"m more of a visual person anyway, so I tend to remember if a book had a red or a blue spine more than I'll remember the exact title.
Eventually, I picked out various categories, and put them together. I stopped double stacking (except for one 1 foot cube of space). The only books that I kept are art books, books on bipolor/personal growth/cluttering, books for work, a 1 foot space of books I haven't read yet, but would like to, and my yearbooks/scrapbooks.
Since I have fewer books, I sometimes go back to sorting by color (because I like how it looks). Other times, I re-sort them by category.
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Post by Celeste on Jul 14, 2009 20:21:09 GMT -5
Pigpen got me hooked on LibraryThing back in 2006, the rascal.  I love it. It is online, which means I can look up my account when I'm in the bookstore and make sure I'm not getting duplicates. I can download it if I want a copy at home. I also give the link to those wanting my wishlist. I can create my own overlapping classification system, enter shelving locations, tag books to find local vendors for buying or selling or trading or even lending, get recommendations, and read book reviews. It is absolutely one of my favorite websites ever. Period. |
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Post by bluefrog on Jul 14, 2009 20:35:14 GMT -5
Wow! Now I have ideas for giving away, selling, organizing, and making an on-line catalog of all my books. Since LibraryThing was recommended by three people, I'll look into that first, then begin the process of organizing/culling down to something I/we can manage.
Thanks, everybody!
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Post by Meme on Jul 14, 2009 23:23:09 GMT -5
if you have microsoft works there is a task maker which has a book program where you can list your books etc with author and copyrite and so on
- I did look into the library thing and found that you can only list so many books etc and then it is not free beyond those books- and most of the other programs were the same-
hugs
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