How do you organize your books?

[DesertBlossom]

I'm a former 5th grade teacher, only recently turned homeschooler. DH also taught middle school social studies for a time. We've amassed a large number of books. Apparently, I need to buy more bookshelves because I found another box of books, not to mention I keep buying more! :) We have enough books that they need to be organized in some manner. 

 

So how do you do it? By author? By genre?  I was going to just organize them all (at least the chapter books, not the picture books) by author, until I opened up another box of DH's books from his teaching days full of historical fiction and non-fiction books. Now I'm not sure I want to just mix them all in there by author. I'm also going to need an entire bookshelf of just homeschool books. 

 

What to do, what to do...

[Critterfixer]

It doesn't seem to matter how I organize them. The boys come along and there goes all my blessed organization.

[TGHEALTHYMOM]

I have boxed up books according to what year we will use them.  Two are full of mostly American History books, Chemistry, placemats, movies, and games.

 

I bought a very nice lazy suzan type piece  to store our software that sits on top of the PC desk and spins for easy access.  Teaching Textbooks fits nicely there as well.

 

I have to see the Spines of our books we are using or put comb bound in a separate file holder on the top shelf of another desk in order.  I put Math manipulative of all sorts in baskets and boxes on the top shelf along with a nice microscope and lab kit.

 

I have a Milk Crate for Paper back books and a fabric box for board books.

 

A basket of phonics readers as well as a globe sit on the top shelf of a small bookshelf in the kitchen.  I am cleaning off the rest of those shelves this week.

Art supplies and cds, movies, Bibles, are in an X-tra kitchen cabinet near the bookshelf.  I am cleaning it out again too.  

 

I cannot believe I started out with 1 bookshelf 16 years ago!

 

I was given 2 nice corner bookshelves and kids kept trashing them in the den, so I moved them to our bedroom.  I have 1 low shelf for picture books and the rest have my books and magazines. 

2 bookshelves in the den work well for History, readers, and an Encyclopedia set.  I also have a CD/tape player on top of one.

 

Thankfully I have been able to sell several books I ended up not liking or just did not have time to use.  

 

I am thankful for the Hot Wheels I just found at a yard sale for 50cents in the package!  Our boys are rough on everything!  I have to replace good books every year and just signed our 2 youngest up for free books to get in the mail.  

 

I also have a box just for library books.  

That does not always work out... I have to search bedrooms for books usually!

 

I used to have a milk crate for each child when they were younger to store their own notebooks and math books.  I always ended up having to sort through trash and organize them for them.  

 

What I am doing now is making a shelf for our 2 oldest and a hanging file folder to put important papers in.  I miss the art on the fridge but our new fridge won't hold magnets!  I purchased a clothes line for hanging art on and dc cut it up before I could hang it.  

 

I need to SIMPLIFY and hopefully join another Co-op next Fall for all of us to attend.  That is my hope!

 

 

 

 

[Arcadia]

Our non-fiction books go by subjects so german books are together, science together, math together, that kind of thing.  For fiction, I let my kids put them in the bookshelves whichever way they like as long as it stays on the fiction shelves.

[smfmommy]

I have two matching shelves in the living room. One has fiction .  They are roughly organized by age with easier books lower down and older ones at the top.  I keep sets together.  The other shelf is non fiction. History, science, biographies all have their own shelf (or shelves).  A couple shelves are various topics.  I only buy, store books that are favorites or difficult to get at the library (ie science books from our particular world view).  I don't have complete sets of the cotton candy variety but might keep say the first of the Boxcar Children. We can get the rest of them at the library.  Although we do have a complete set of Nancy Drew and Tom Swift and are working on Hardy Boys but those are on different shelves.   I like knowing roughly where a book I want is.  I also like looking at neatly organized shelves.  It's a calming affect within the chaos (at times) of six children.   :party:

[PeterPan]

history--by time period (OTAE, NTGR, MARR, american/modern)

fiction--divided by easy readers then elementary and junior high /high school, the elementary by author, yes

science, math, etc. in laundry baskets

picture books-laundry baskets

 

Decide on your library software.  :)

[DesertBlossom]

history--by time period (OTAE, NTGR, MARR, american/modern)

fiction--divided by easy readers then elementary and junior high /high school, the elementary by author, yes

science, math, etc. in laundry baskets

picture books-laundry baskets

 

Decide on your library software.   :)

Library software?

[IsabelC]

We're not at all organized at the moment! :blush:

 

We have two bookcases in our bedroom, one in the lounge and one in the school room. Each child has an individual bookcase in her/his bedroom as well. 

We used to have problems with the older kids refusing to hand outgrown books down, so we decided that books would belong to the family, with only extra special gift books being individually owned. The theory is that each child can 'borrow' family books and have 20-30 in their room at a time. In practice, they bring books into their rooms and never return them, so I remove books whenever their shelves start overflowing.

I also cull out books every now and again (both outgrown board books and books I personally dislike ;) ).

 

 

The problem is that with books moving around the house regularly, it tends to be difficult to locate a specific one because it could be in any of six rooms.

  :confused1:

[Guest]

Dewey Decimal for nonfiction, alphabetical by author's last name for fiction, and the bottom shelves for the baby's books.

It would work great except for the fact that "the baby" is six years old now and the pre-baby books are gradually migrating and becoming less and less organized. :(

The ex-baby was about this age when I originally organized. It seemed like an absurd waste of a whole day of spring cleaning at the time, but that was all the "library science" either of the middles ever needed and it would not have been practical to expect the short term memory of my 30s to have kept working well enough into my 50s for me to remember that the book I am looking for was on the shelf by the bathroom in the apartment  so I must have put it on the brown shelf in the old house and all those books are on the white shelf in the new house.

 

 

[DesertBlossom]

Oh my goodness! I never knew library software existed! I just downloaded libib and spent 30 minutes scanning books. With my phone you don't get to see the title in between scans. And now that I'm looking at the list of 50+ books that I just scanned, I know there are a handful that aren't right. But I have no idea which ones they are without going through all the books one by one to see if they are on the list or not.  :crying:  Maybe it was too good to be true.

[abba12]

I have Collectorz.com book collector, so when I am looking for things I use it.

 

As for organizing the books themselves, we have a board book shelf in the play area, a picture book/first readers shelf in the loungeroom and a library shelf by the door.

 

Then in the schoolroom there is 4 bookcases with a shelf or two each for

 

curriculum shelf

first chapter books shelf

modern childrens fiction shelf

Classic childrens fiction shelf

teen fiction shelf

adult fiction shelf

Classic teen/adult fiction shelf

childrens non-fiction (mixed atm)

teen/adult non-fiction (mixed atm)

Religious fiction

Religious/Theology non-fiction

Craft books

Cook Books

Non-religious child rearing/family/health/self sufficiency skills books

 

I think that's all. Within those groupings I try to keep all books from one author/series together but don't organize them any further. I will probably organize the non-fiction at least when I have enough to warrant it but right now the age division is enough.

[mumto2]

Currently I keep only textbooks and other support materials for current coursework out on book shelves. This can be pretty broad in the support material category which includes pretty much anything I can imagine anyone wanting.  Fiction etc that is either beloved or are good choices for upcoming months for dc ages also displayed.  This pretty much fills my bookshelves.  I have plastic bins where I have tried to roughly categorize the rest.  I used to tuck things all over the place.  The big bins where I am either topic specific like  history , math, Sonlight, or a bit broader like used but keeping or new purchases seems to be making it so I find thing quickly when I decide that I actually really want to.  We have these on industrial shelving units in the garage.  

[SilverMoon]

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Edited August 31, 2023 by SilverMoon

[Kalmia]

Someone on this board has this very appropriate quote in their siggy: 

 

"There is no such thing as too many books only the phenomena of insufficient bookshelves."

 

Because historical fiction doesn't always indicate the time period covered by title, I bought little blank stickers for the spine and wrote the historical period there and shelved like time periods together them together. 

[CAtoVA]

I organize by subject. Within the subject, such as science, I sub organize by topic such as life science and then sub, sub organize such as all plants and botany together, etc. With my math books I organize typically by topic and also by age like primary with primary, etc.

 

With history books I organize by era starting with ancients. Within ancients I go in order starting with early man and farmers, then Mesopotamia, etc. I would put all the historical fiction for that era together with the nonfiction. It's a "block" that deals with that time period. I put general "spine" type of books all together after all the era specific books.

[HejKatt]

Fiction by last name, although picture books get a dedicated bottom shelf as well as sets (BookHouse, Childcraft).

 

Non-fiction by a simpilfied Dewey - we use the 100s (e.g. 800 for Literature) and expand into the 10s (e.g. 820 for Shakespeare) depending on our collection. A sample chart can be found here:  http://www.cf.k12.wi.us/library/deweydecimal.htm.   Science readers, e.g. Let's Read and Find Out series, get a dedicated bottom shelf too.

 

 

ETA - Books that I'm using for the current school year are pulled out onto a separate shelf. 

[helena]

fiction is alphabetical in the classroom

science is by subject with labeled dividers in the classroom

a coupole fairytale shelves in the classroom

history, only the cycle we're on this year, in the classroom The rest are divided by time periods and stored in big rubbermaid boxes in the garage

vintage sets are organized in the library

highschool-adult books in the library

cookbooks, home ec books, and coffee table art books in a whole other area on their own bookshelf

our vintage mini book collection is upstairs in a nook

kids favorite childhood books are in a cabinet in their room

 

I keep track of everything on delicious library.. is that what it's called?? 

 

I'm very happy with how everything is organized. Books are easy to find and I rarely buy duplicates. On accident I mean, sometimes I buy better versions of what I already own. Then, the 2nd rate books go on a whole other bookshelf in the garage to be given away to friends and family. I love books. :)

 

ETA: I also have a few sets of beautiful old bookends where I like to switch out interesting collections.

[tori729]

Wow, I need to find a place to store my books! We really don't have any extra room in our small house.

My hubby complains that we have too many books and they are always scattered all over the living room but I just tell him to be thankful that the kids love to read so much!!