From the chaotic to the curated, there is a wide range of ways you like to organise your bookshelves.
That has been made abundantly clear by the response to our recent story about an op shop organising its books by colour.
While some people were fond of the aesthetically pleasing decision, others were aghast, horrified at how difficult it would be to find a specific book or author.
Many of you shared your own systems for ordering home libraries, which range from alphabetical order to carefully curated systems which make finding a desired novel simple and efficient.
And one thing is certain: there is no one way we all agree on!
These are some of the approaches you shared.
Embracing the chaos
I have many thousands of books. Some are carefully arranged by genre on shelves in my flat and some are in piles on the floor. Due to a recent move, many others are fairly randomly shelved in the flat. There are a lot of other books in boxes piled around the perimeter of the flat.
I have dug into some of these looking for particular books and this has resulted in piles of excavated books being dotted around on any available horizontal surface. I think you could say that I have several different concurrent systems. — Baguette Dague, Ngambri/Braddon ACT
It used to be chronologically, then by genre, then alphabetically by author, then alphabetically by title. Now it’s about how many books I can cram onto a shelf if I triple stack. Can never have too many books. — Elly Trusty
I have a huge collection of books and I have organised them by colour. I find it so aesthetically pleasing. I only deviate from this when it comes to series and then they are all shelved together. — Georgia Hennigar
Keeping it organised
I’m a librarian and shelve my books in alphabetical order for fiction and biographical. Children’s books are separate, as are non-fiction. I also have special knick-knacks from my travels interspersed among the books. — Alida Lahiff, Naarm/Niddrie VIC
My main interests are ancient history, classical literature and early philosophy. So I organise the books by date of author, ranging from early BC to late AD, in separate sections for the various areas of interest.
This allows me to associate the writers who lived in any era with others of the same era. — Rick Dorland, Hervey Bay QLD
My books are arranged by author, mainly. If I find an author I really like, I buy all the books he or she has written and, if applicable, have them in series order. — Marjorie Williamson, Ngurra Country/Blaxland NSW
Cookbooks on shelves in kitchen by size. Fiction by author and non-fiction by topic. Plus haphazard current piles. — Alma Ries, Djilang/Geelong VIC
My library is all non-fiction, organised by my own eras of interest, with a strong geographical flavour. I know just where to look. — Pauline Bruce
The complex and curated
I visited a Sydney bookshop around 20 years ago which did most of its business online. Customers actually visiting was a rarity for them. The books were on shelves in reversed ISBN order. Not from highest to lowest, but from lowest to highest if the digits had been reversed.
When a bookshop worker goes to pick up a book for an order, the location will have a multitude of books of diverse subjects (and hence titles). The book they are trying to find will ‘stand out from the crowd’. The risk of pulling a similarly titled book from the shelves is greatly reduced. — Lyle Williams, Ngambri/Campbell ACT
I use adjustable shelving and place books by height which reduces wasted space between the top of a book and the shelf above. I catalogue books on my computer so that I can find them. — Peter James, Toongabbie/Winston Hills NSW
I downloaded some inexpensive software on my computer and started entering each book: listing its title, author and genre. I give each book an item number and place it in the book shelves, marked in that order. At present I can find any book I want by consulting my computer.
I’m quite pleased with what I have achieved as I have no library experience or training. My only dread is getting a computer virus and losing all my data. I’m running behind with my data entry, as I’ve found with doing all this librarian stuff, I don’t have time to read many books. — PMH, Tarndanya/Beaumont SA
Thanks to everyone who shared their techniques with ABC Everyday. Some comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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