Fellow book nerds, how do you organize and inventory your books?

[Anonymous]

I keep only the ones I want to reread or consult (as with gardening books). I pass on the others. As a result, I don’t end up accumulating tons of books.

[Anonymous]

I divide by fiction / non fiction. Then theme. No inventory. Gently organized. Also have additional bookcases for work related books, personal development, cookbooks, art. And then a smaller section for my kids books for anything that isn’t in their room.

[Anonymous]

For me - fiction by author.
Non-fiction by theme - wars, American history, true crime, biographies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents used to have a collection of books and they were just arranged by size and vaguely by author - there were even shallow bookshelves for pocket size editions. We knew where each book lived.

My uncle has a castle with a library room. The volumes are leather bound and gilt-edged and the shelves go up to the ceiling, with a movable ladder. They're all classics and mostly all the same size, arranged by author. He keeps his paperbacks in his bedroom and sitting room, all in haphazard piles.

Please tell us more about your Uncle’s castle!

Is this the French poster?

[Anonymous]

I built a little free library and use it to give away any book that I realistically won’t read again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I need to find a way to organize about 700-800 books. I am a pretty indecisive person and have looked at Libib, Storygraph, Library Things, book scanners but can't seem to commit...

I think i want to alphabetize the titles within some of these categories and also have a big master list of all these titles. How do you organize and categorize your books? And do you use the same app to also log your ebooks, audio books, and DVDs?

So far I have split my books into:

picture books (I still need to divide by topic or may non-fiction/fiction)
YA fiction
cookbooks
foreign language
adult non fiction: math and logic
adult non fiction: music and arts
adult non fiction: other hobbies
adult non fiction: general
older classic lit
modern lit

I just organize my shelves by topic, like a library. And then if I'm curious about ancient history and literature, I know where to look. Periodically, I'll have to do some shifting to keep things together.

[Anonymous]

I don't inventory, but I do keep track of what I read in Bookly App. I keep track of what I want to read in Storygraph. I shelve according to genre and type (hardback vs. soft cover). I also have dedicated shelves for my TBR pile. I read mostly physical copies and loan out books regularly.

[Anonymous]

My son has like a thousand on 4 different book shelves in his room. I divided into genres and then authors within genres but don’t bother alphabetizing. So we have:
Historical fiction
Non fiction history
Fiction, traditional type stuff (eg Tom Sawyer, dickens, etc)
Fiction, contemporary realistic type stuff
Non-fiction science
Comic and autobiographical
Fantasy and science fiction (this is many shelves)
Mythology and related (eg rick riordan, the odyssey, etc)
manga
Grouping by series (eg dune all together) and then by author (so all the dickens together or whatever) makes it relatively easy to find things as you are looking. It makes it easier for me to help clean his room as well as I have a game plan for putting the books away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't keep many around these days. I did a purge a few years ago and was grossed out by how dusty the old books were, so now I pass them on unless they mean something me personally.

This. Why do you need to keep 800 books OP? Why not pass them on? Stop buying new ones? Get a Kindle? Go to the library? Or is it a flex? You want to look smart when people come over? Is it so one day your kids can throw out your books for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't keep many around these days. I did a purge a few years ago and was grossed out by how dusty the old books were, so now I pass them on unless they mean something me personally.

This. Why do you need to keep 800 books OP? Why not pass them on? Stop buying new ones? Get a Kindle? Go to the library? Or is it a flex? You want to look smart when people come over? Is it so one day your kids can throw out your books for you?

I tried to transition to Kindle and couldn’t. The latest reader I tried was the second paperwhite. And I do check things out from the library but often want things they don’t have, or I want to reread something on a whil and want to be able to. Some of the books are mine and some are children’s books.

[Anonymous]

To the castle poster—wow! Thanks for sharing these fascinating tidbits!

[Anonymous]

I don't catalog my owned books intentionally, but I do use LibraryThing and have since 2008. I enter every book I read in my cataglog there and tag it with info like publication decade, genre, author's country of origin, owned/library/kindle, etc. I also write a brief review. LibraryThing does not have a full app, though you can use the app to access your library. But I mainly use the web-based version on my laptop.

I guess I track my reading, not necessarily every book I own. That's more important to me. My owned books are organized on my shelves so that I don't feel a catalog is necessary.

[Anonymous]

I have a library in my house built w ikea bookshelves and spiced up by an actual carpenter w trim.
I’m a former librarian so fiction by author and non fiction by Dewey, or at least Dewey order. They’re not cataloged at all.

[Anonymous]

I use a modified version of the Library of Congress classification system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Color of the binding.

This system is the only thing that has ever worked for me. I can usually find any book within seconds.