Four Year Cycle book organization?

[Kjirstyn2023]

Instead of always wondering what books I have on what topics, and how to cross-organize them, I've finally decided to sort them by the four year cycle that WTM outlines, both for history and science. I think I'm going to be really happy with this because even if we want a book on a topic that's out of the current line, at least I know the area to look in.

My question is-- have any of you done this and regretted it, and why? I'm strongly considering adding our fictional books into this sorting, but I'm wondering if that's over reaching and might backfire. So before I over haul our [large] home library...thoughts?  

Thanks.  😄

[maize]

I did something like this, I used colored dots for different categories of books on the spines (I had red for history, green for science, yellow for literature, and a few more). I shelved like categories together (dots made it easy to reshelf, or for a child to reshelf) but I did write the corresponding year number (1-4) for books that fit into a particular cycle. I may have shelved those books together within their categories, I don't remember.

I'm not following a four year cycle anymore so not really using the same organization system.

Edited August 17, 2019 by maize

[HomeAgain]

I sort into large bookcases: one for science, one for math, one for language study, and one for history/geography.  They're all arranged in chronological and age order.  For example, my Ancients section starts with general books on ancient history, but my books covering the Odyssey start with picture books, then The Children's Homer, then an adult version. That way I can pull whatever without having to scan my shelf 3 times like I would if I sorted by grammar, logic, rhetoric.

[lots of little ducklings]

We use a 3-year cycle and only have enough shelf space for one cycle at a time, so I box away the other cycles in labeled boxes in our crawlspace.  To track them (so I know whether we own them before buying them a second time), I am using BookCrawler (iOS app; not sure if it's available for Android).  There may be better apps out there, but this has worked fairly well and accomplished the goal in spite of a few flaky glitches (be sure to back up regularly so you don't lose your work).  You can scan in most of the books using your phone, so while it was still a sizable project to initially record things (and I only did school books, not everything we own, and it took multiple days last summer), it wasn't hard. You can tag each book with multiple tags, so sorting by cycle is just one option. You can also sort by any other category you want to set.   

 

HTH.

 

[8filltheheart]

19 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

I sort into large bookcases: one for science, one for math, one for language study, and one for history/geography.  They're all arranged in chronological and age order.  For example, my Ancients section starts with general books on ancient history, but my books covering the Odyssey start with picture books, then The Children's Homer, then an adult version. That way I can pull whatever without having to scan my shelf 3 times like I would if I sorted by grammar, logic, rhetoric.

This is similar to how I organize our library.  I additionally separate out specific series like Landmark books are all together, Scientists in the Field, etc.  I can pretty much locate anything I want fairly quickly b/c our shelves are organized pretty much like an actual library except I don't organize fiction by author name but general categories---ancient history, Asian culture, etc or fairy tales, scifi, etc.

One time we moved and I let the movers load the boxes and I regretted it so much.  THey packed by size and my books were all over the place.  It took weeks for me to reorganize my library. 😥(I own thousands of books, though, so this was no small task.)  We are in the process of moving again and I packed all my books myself.

[Melissa in Australia]

I have a large bookshelf ( Actually a single bed with the slats turned sideways) that has a shelf for the reading lists in the 4 year cycle.

top shelf ancients,

next shelf middle ages

 next shelf age of discovery and inventions

 then the next 2 shelves early modern and modern times 

[Melissa in Australia]

I have another bookshelf with non-fiction  in Dewey decimal system on the bottom shelves and the middles shelves with classics ,  top shelve is Britannica Great Books . it is a very very large bookshelf that covers a whole wall in my lounge-room

a separate bookshelf that has reference books for science and history, with a shelf or 2 for text books that we are currently not using

 

 

[Trilliumlady]

All this talk of large bookshelves is making me drool......  Someday!

[2_girls_mommy]

On 8/16/2019 at 7:49 PM, lots of little ducklings said:

We use a 3-year cycle and only have enough shelf space for one cycle at a time, so I box away the other cycles in labeled boxes in our crawlspace.  To track them (so I know whether we own them before buying them a second time), I am using BookCrawler (iOS app; not sure if it's available for Android).  There may be better apps out there, but this has worked fairly well and accomplished the goal in spite of a few flaky glitches (be sure to back up regularly so you don't lose your work).  You can scan in most of the books using your phone, so while it was still a sizable project to initially record things (and I only did school books, not everything we own, and it took multiple days last summer), it wasn't hard. You can tag each book with multiple tags, so sorting by cycle is just one option. You can also sort by any other category you want to set.   

 

HTH.

 

I have done this before. It worked great for me. I put everything related that I would be using in there, fiction and non fiction so it was all there ready to put on the shelf when I cycled back, or so that I could dig out a book when I needed it in between years. 

Now I have them sorted into into plastic labeled bins on shelf. 

[Momto6inIN]

I have several shelves of fiction chapter books organized by title because I never remember who the author is. A separate shelf for science non fiction organized by topic. A separate shelf for history non fiction arranged by time period. A separate shelf for poetry. Two separate shelves for picture books. And a basket on the floor with toddler cardboard books.

I thought about putting the fiction in with the historical non fiction by time period, but decided against it because then my OCD tendencies would make me feel like my kids could only read a particular book when we were actually at that point in the history cycle. And I don't want to be that person LOL

[Janeway]

My fiction books are organized by age level basically and then within that, by series or author. My science books are all on bottom shelves across the many shelves, but by topic. My history books are chronological order, on specific shelves. I recently bought another shelf. It is already full. 

[rjand6more]

I did that and I don't regret it.  I pulled apart all my SL cores(Core A-100) to fit a 4 year cycle. I left the SL stickers on them in case I ever want to reunite them.:) I used  Washi tapes to code all the books for a World Cultures year I created also.  

 

I left the science biographies all on a shelf sorted by time period.  I also left a shelf for other biographies also sorted by time period.  The kids sometimes just want a biography and don't care about the timeline. 🙂

Then, we have 3 shelves of fiction that doesn't really fit anywhere else.