Further thoughts on librarying

[celticdragonfly]

selenite ended up bringing down the Ikea bookshelf that was in Brendan's room, and put it diagonally across the window in the north library. That gives us enough room to get all the fiction, hardback and paperback, and his gaming books into the north library. The south library will be nonfiction, oversized, and the music room.

We need to get a bigger house to have room for more books!

Wait a minute, isn't that just what we did 2 years ago in moving to Texas? Yeek.

Trouble is, they don't build houses with rooms suitable for libraries. We've done pretty well with combining what is officially the living room and the dining room, but still. We could rearrange my study some, get rid of the half-height bookcase, and put in several Ivar units up there, but that really divides the library, craft books up there is logical but what else do we move up there?

I suppose we ought to start culling - really, do we need *three* copies of Heinlein's Expanded Universe on the shelf? - but selenite just doesn't work that way. And it wouldn't be good in the long run. We do have some more room right now, it's not urgent yet.

Goodness, just imagine all the extra books we'll be adding in as the kids get older and homeschooling grows.

Looking at the number of paperback fiction books, and the number of bookcases they take up, as compared to the number of hardback fiction and the shelves THEY take up, I am really feeling that we need to seriously resolve to WAIT for paperback for almost all books from now on. Not because of the savings in price as much as because of the savings in bookshelf space.

Maggie was utterly heartbroken to have Andy and Jazz leave - they were getting their shoes on, she got hers on, she was all ready for "an Adventure!" Took some persuading to convince her that she shouldn't go to Austin with them.

Comments

Weeding is good, of course, but...

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

1) Floor to ceiling bookshelves ala Trolleypup
2a) Use bookshelves where-ever there's free wallspace (I have one in a bathroom :-)
2b) Dedicated paperback shelving is particularly easy to tuck into unused wall-space as it's only 8" deep. One can buy those metal bracket holders, screw 'em in, then add brackets and shelves floor to ceiling. (Side walls can be replaced by inexpensive bookeneds from a library supply store)
3b) The arrangement doesn't have to be 1100% rationally intuitive any longer: You've got a catalog!
3) Where you have deep cases (11 inches or more) you can create useful layered shelving for paperbacks or paper-and-hardcover by laying a 7" (9' for hardcover+paper) x wide x 2" high lightweight board across the back of the shelf.

Glad the project went well, I'd've loved to have been involved.