Book storage advice please...

[femke]

Hi,

 

How do you store your books? We have ours now in bookcases, but I can't seem to find anything. How do sort them? By theme, age or reading level? Do you 'hide' the books you're not yet using or do you have all the books available all the time?

 

Thank you!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Hi,

 

How do you store your books? We have ours now in bookcases, but I can't seem to find anything. How do sort them? By theme, age or reading level? Do you 'hide' the books you're not yet using or do you have all the books available all the time?

 

Thank you!

 

In our main school area (aka dining room) we have shelves for easy readers, science, history (3 shelves roughly divided by time/culture), Bible, and reference.

Most of the rest of the books are in oldest ds's room. There are a few shelves that are organized, like the German or Eyewitness books. But stuff that is just for the kids to read, I try not to get too worked up about.

 

DH's books are organized by topic (WWI, Russia, Asia, WWII, militaria mostly).

 

If there are school books that I know we won't be using for a year or more, I tend to box them up to open up shelf space. So Ancient Egypt is already boxed up except for a couple favorites the kids asked to keep out. Middle Ages to modern including US history went into storage on this move.

 

We have around 5,000 books, so there will always be some looking around to find a book. But we can usually get within a shelf or two pretty quickly.

[Guest TheBugsMom]

We store our books similar to the library system in the book cases in the school room:

Picture books

Childrens fiction alphabetical by author

Biographies alphabetical by person

Encyclopedia set

Non fiction according to the Dewy Decimal subject system

 

I do have a shelf for the years school books and a shelf for next years books (as I purchase them).

 

Adult type fiction goes in the den book cases.

 

With the exception of the picture book and school shelves, any book taken out has a ruler slid in its place so the book can be returned to its exact spot.

[KristineinKS]

We have bookshelves all over our house and I've found it easiest to sort books by theme.

 

For our school books, I have one or more shelves for each subject. And on those shelves the books are grouped by type. For example, on my science shelf, all of the inventor biographies are together, as are the geology books, astronomy books, physics books, etc. I have an entire bookshelf for US History and each shelf covers a certain period.

 

I organize my personal books in a similar manner - I have a shelf of British history, another of books about India (including any books set in India), a shelf of saint biographies, a US history shelf, etc. And same for the kids' books - we have a fairy tale shelf, adventure stories, classic literature, British children's literature, mysteries, etc.

 

The books not used as much are kept in my office (though still on shelves). In fact, I just moved all of our books about the ancients and the middle ages in here yesterday since we're starting US History.

 

It's not a foolproof system of course & sometimes I still can't find a book that I'm looking for (or more often, I forget what we have!), but it works better than anything else I've come up with.

[lisabelle]

Oh boy. We just got a new bookcase because the old ones are overflowing. But here's what we do:

 

I have 3 cases in the living room with adult books. One is for fiction, and it's arranged roughly alphabetically by author. One is Russian Literature (my major in college), also arranged alphabetically. Nonfiction books about Russian literature/history/culture are below, and also arranged alphabetically. Below those are parenting books, in no particular order.

 

The third case is for other nonfiction. Things like history, religion, philosophy--books that one would tend to read cover-to-cover are arranged alphabetically. Home and garden improvement books are under that, in no particular order. And below that are my cookbooks, also in no particular order.

 

The bookcase in our family room contains my textbooks and classwork from college, things I think we might use as part of ds's home education. It also has craft magazines and fiction overflow. We have another large bookcase salvaged from a school that we are refinishing, which will also go in that room. It will be dedicated for homeschool, and I will probably put my college stuff in there as well.

 

Ds has his own large bookcase in his room. It's pretty full, but I weed through it frequently. He takes good care of his books so we tend to regift them for his younger cousins. And we donate to schools and libraries.

 

We have a large bookcase in our computer room as well. Dh has one half filled with programming books/technical manuals. My half is filled with craft books, our family's scrapbooks and art supplies.

[Gratia271]

Some topical, some according to Dewey Decimal.

[RoughCollie]

I used to alphabetize DH's fiction, but he would not keep it that way, so I now put it in categories (scifi, historical novels, etc.). His nonfiction is sorted by subject -- and there aren't many of them (history and infectious diseases).

 

I alphabetize the kids' fiction books by author. Nonfiction is sorted by subject - history, math, science, etc. Each category is divided into subcategories. For example, ancients, middle ages for history; algebra, geometry for math.

 

The kids keep track of their personal books themselves -- they each have bookcases in their rooms.

 

My books are in a separate bookcase, separated by category: Religion, cooking, interior decorating, gardening/yard, home repair, financial management, fiction. I don't keep much fiction because it is rare for me to re-read books.

[NanceXToo]

Books that are just more 'fluff' I let the kids keep in their individual rooms however they want (my 10 y/o has a milk crate full of books in one instance).

 

I have a bookcase in my bedroom with my reading books, other than keeping series/authors together, the rest is just random.

 

Then I have two bookcases downstairs with a shelf for science and history type books, a shelf for poetry and my youngest's dr. seuss books, a couple shelves for books that are more like classics for my 10 y/o, and another bookshelf where I keep series together, like Little House, Narnia and so on.

 

Some of it is just randomly placed but I try to keep it SOMEWHAT organized so that if there's anything specific I want to find, it doesn't take forever.