Ideas to Organize Your Books

Custom-made bookcases, especially a built-in type are strong to house heavy volumes of books.  The built-in furniture will not tip over.  They also save space, and dust does not collect underneath them. Your local carpenter and a good interior designer can help you create a functional cabinet or bookshelf for your collection of books.  Here are strategies to organize your home library collection. 

• Cull.  Reading is one of the most enjoyable hobbies and passions. You can loose yourself for hours while absorbing a good novel.  You can read alone or enjoy a book discussion with a community such as book clubs.  Books today are cheaply produced and printed on large presses that can roll out 10,000 books in a few hours.  As a result, it is not difficult to accumulate many books in a hurry.  It is practical to weed out books periodically.  Go through your books and get rid of the topics that contained dated material, incomplete information, or inaccurate printing.  You might come across books you are not interested any more but may be useful to other readers.  Book donation is a less painful way to part with your books—bookworms dislike throwing books away.  There are many organizations that accept used books.  You may be able to sell your books.  Some books live pass their usefulness and should not take up valuable shelf space.  Let’s face it, accounting textbook from your college years ago will not have the information you need for the current tax year.  Go through cookbooks, diet books, fashion and style books, how-to books, and any titles that you have out grown.    Make room for more books that you would like to read.  Box your castoff books and send them to hospitals, local library, or prison.     

• Catalog.  Grouping books that you would like to keep into categories:  Good reference books, poetry, nonfiction books, novels, biography, self-help, gardening, current traveling books and beloved classics.  Don’t forget to keep fun books for everyday reading.  Use whatever method you find comfortable for yourself when you look for books to read and arrange your books accordingly.  You might organize your books in each category alphabetically by authors or subject matter.  If you have many favorite authors, you might group their books together and arrange by publishing dates.  This makes it easier to find what you need to read quickly.   

• Arrange.  Stand books on edge neatly.  Use substantial bookends to prop up your books.  Place oversized books horizontally.  Large art books should be stacked with the larger ones at the bottom and smaller ones on top.  The varied colorful spines make their own art work.  Carefully arrange them so that they look attractive.  When possible, place books with same color spines together.  It gives an illusion of order to your bookshelf.  Keep books away from the sun and high humidity.

Curling up with a good read is as essential to your well being as a good nap.  It has a restorative power.  Now that your books are organized, you can nap between chapters.