how do you organize your library/

How do you organize your books in your library? Whether you have 50 or 5000, doesn't there have to be some type of organization? I am reorganizing my books; right now they are grouped by hardbacks (all types), reference books, mysteries, historical fiction, Christian fiction, children's books - and stacks of organized or disorganized want-to-read-next books. All are pretty much organzied alphabetically by author.

Any ideas?

To a certain extent, this will always be governed by "space available" and how it is configured. We have our fiction alpha by author in the living room, TV room and hallway, divided by hardback vs. softcover. I tag the books with whether they are hardback or paperback.

Most of my craft books are in my sewing room, computer books are next to the computer, and my non-fiction collection is in the TV room and the living room, arranged very roughly by subject, but with a strong bias governed by size, so as to fit as much in as possible!

My system is one of the most time honoured ways to file books. Organized chaos. Read in one bookcase, TBR in the other bookcases. I like things simple.

I also have read in one set of bookcases and TBR in another set. I don't intentionally set out to sort my books by type, but they do seem to end up that way: mysteries together (mostly), humor together (mostly), signed books together (mostly). As haphazard as it may seem, I can probably go straight to any book in my library. I'm afraid if I got too much more organized than that, I'd be nuts trying to keep it that way. And what if I have a signed humorous mystery? I like staffordcastle's "roughly by subject"!

Here's a cool way -- shelving books in a color spectrum. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/02/redecorate_with...

If I have several books by an author, I tend to keep them together.
I organize sort of by genre/unread/read. I currently have way more unread than I ever had before...

7: mckait,

"I currently have way more unread than I ever had before..".

That seems to be an occupational hazard here in LT world. :-)

Too true.

Next to the kitchen I have one case for cookbooks and hobby books. The first two shelves are for cookbooks and the next three are for hobbies. A second bookcase is next to the main computer for reference books, first shelf is for Encyclopedias and dictionaries. One shelf is for business books and the next three are for science books. A third case holds Fiction books, The top two shelves have soft cover novels, the next two shelves have hard cover books, and the last two have children's books and graphic novels. In the office are all my work related books, and in the sewing room are my craftbooks. In my bedroom I have one case for my favorite books, Mysteries, and poetry. A second book case for my inspiritional books, and the third case is for my Religous books and Bibles. This is as far as I go in orginizing my books.

Being an ex-librarian I have two author/title sequences, fiction and non-fiction in the hall/conservatory. I have a to-read shelf onto which new books go. Most times though new books push unread "old-new" books off this shelf into the appropriate sequence :-( Total orderliness is ruined by book size: mass-market paperbacks are the ideal, 'trade paperbacks' and the like really annoy me...

My books are organized by what fits on what shelf. Height determines where it goes, in other words. Mostly, of course. Paperbacks usually get stacked two deep, and there's one row that has a whole other row of books behind it.

Every book, (except for the lost children that are tagged 'misshelved') have a room, row, shelf location tag. So I can search for all my Dorothy Sayers, as an example, and find out that they are on S12, S13, L33, L47, L52, L63, L66, and L83. This is a combination of paperbacks and hardcovers. Some are in the sunroom, some are in the library.

This works for me, because I hate the idea of having to move books around to accomodate a new one that has to go in the middle of somewhere, pushing two to the next shelf, two at the end of that shelf to the next shelf, etc. I do occasionally move things around, but not that often.

I have over 3000 books and don't know what I would do without location tags. Keeping them under control is pretty easy, actually.

I have all my unread books on basically three shelves - A cabinet in the family has all the books that I own that are for my challenges this year (2 shelves-overflowing!) and my nighttable has the remainder of my unread books. The ones that I have read and not sold or donated are in various rooms and are currently being tagged for location, very much like Karenmarie's. I try to keep the genres together and those by the same author together but basically size has a big thing to do with it because if just paperbacks fit on a shelf I'm not wasting leftover space because it's not the same author, etc. It goes where there's room.

I have them divided into favorites, regional (Southern etc), travel, religious, my husband's Civil War collection, and several TBR shelves.

Author then original publication date...

I find this eases my slightly obsessive / compulsive anxieties the best...