Organising your books

[trekkiedane]

I am, however, planning to go to IKEA sometime this year to get some BILLYs (like these) for the bedroom (that feng-shui-woman is -mildly put- nuts!).

I love BILLYs. I have four in my study.

Can't say I do, they're frakking ugly.

But incredibly practical, and with glass doors on them it means I can store books in the bedroom without having to give dust on my books another thought -ever.

At some point in the future there's going to be world peace... this is possibly achieved by the leaders of the two most antagonistic fractions finding themselves in the same IKEA-store buying BILLYs, and the rest -as they're going to say- is history.

 

[Kestra]

I am, however, planning to go to IKEA sometime this year to get some BILLYs (like these) for the bedroom (that feng-shui-woman is -mildly put- nuts!).

I love BILLYs. I have four in my study.

Can't say I do, they're frakking ugly.

People make them look like built-in bookcases fairly easily. There are several blogs out there about doing it. I'd totally do that if we lived in a house that we owned.

 

[CorporalClegg]

This thread got me to thinking about how long it will be before "books" become nothing more than decorative objects. It's not crazy to think that electronic literature will become totally ubiquitous within a century or so, and new books will no longer continue to be printed.

At that time, will people just start to collect them as antiques and store them on shelves simply as a matter of room-candy and only take them down to dust occasionally?

 

[Kestra]

At that time, will people just start to collect them as antiques and store them on shelves simply as a matter of room-candy and only take them down to dust occasionally?

Yep.

It's not that no one will ever read a non-electronic book again, just that this will become a very rare activity. Like typing on a typewriter or something.

 

[trekkiedane]

^Nah, people will be thrilled to have all that shelve place to store the bloody ugly big plastic cases blu-ray discs and games come in

I love BILLYs. I have four in my study.

Can't say I do, they're frakking ugly.

People make them look like built-in bookcases fairly easily. There are several blogs out there about doing it. I'd totally do that if we lived in a house that we owned.

Of course it's what you do with them and what you put in them that makes them acceptable in the first place.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I have two bookcases that are reserved for specific kinds of books: a six-foot case filled with Isaac Asimov's works, which I collect, and a three-foot filled with Trek paperbacks. I keep my favorite books of various genres concentrated on my bedside bookcase, although they share it with many others. Reference books are kept in a cabinet hanging over my desk. The rest is chaos. I need more cases; I have a big plastic bin filled with books just sitting on the floor. I am considering dispensing with some of the books I'm fairly sure I'll never use or desire to re-read. My intellectual tendencies -- and the desire to one day to be able to walk into a room and be surrounded by walls of books, a private library -- keep me from letting anything go, though. Whenever I get around to moving in a new bookcase (or two), I plan on organizing them in general Dewey form, with the exception of my Trek, Asimov, and Favorites collections. I want to keep those separate.

 

[trekkiedane]

/.../ the desire to one day to be able to walk into a room and be surrounded by walls of books, a private library /.../

In that room, of mine, I'd also need a good easy-chair (and a something to put my legs up upon), a fireplace and a small table next to my chair -to put my mug of coffee and my glass of Cognac on

 

[Mary Ann]

I am, however, planning to go to IKEA sometime this year to get some BILLYs (like these) for the bedroom (that feng-shui-woman is -mildly put- nuts!).

I love BILLYs. I have four in my study.

Can't say I do, they're frakking ugly.

But incredibly practical, and with glass doors on them it means I can store books in the bedroom without having to give dust on my books another thought -ever.

My father still uses Billy bookcases I purchased about 20 years ago. When I still lived with my parents those bookcases were filled to overflowing, and my dad also has every shelf crammed with hardbacks. Billy bookcases may be ugly, but I've certainly had my money's worth from them.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I had to look up what a Billy bookcase was, and I found out that they are the sort of bookcase I have. I had never heard them called that before maybe because we don't have any IKEA stores in Tasmania. I just call them flatpack bookcases.

I have had some of mine for several years. They are cheap looking especially the birch veneer ones but they serve their purpose adequately.

I do plan to buy some more expensive bookcases with glass doors (not flatpacked ones) later this year when I get the interest from my investments.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

/.../ the desire to one day to be able to walk into a room and be surrounded by walls of books, a private library /.../

In that room, of mine, I'd also need a good easy-chair (and a something to put my legs up upon), a fireplace and a small table next to my chair -to put my mug of coffee and my glass of Cognac on

Your coffee? My dear trekkiedane, you and Smellincoffee are clearly describing my future house. You're getting unsettling human contact into my isolated world of literature, please leave.

 

[trekkiedane]

What was that? -is there someone deranged in the library? -good thing I always have my piece of lead pipe close...

I had to look up what a Billy bookcase was, and I found out that they are the sort of bookcase I have. I had never heard them called that before maybe because we don't have any IKEA stores in Tasmania. I just call them flatpack bookcases.

I have had some of mine for several years. They are cheap looking especially the birch veneer ones but they serve their purpose adequately.

I do plan to buy some more expensive bookcases with glass doors (not flatpacked ones) later this year when I get the interest from my investments.

If you follow the link in my post, you'll see some BILLYs with the optional (or is that 'extra'?) glass doors -plus you can get an 'extension-shelf' to put on top of the standard BILLY book-case (to which you can also get glass doors).

 

[Miss Chicken]

Ye, I have recently bought some white one with glass doors - one for the bathroom to but towel etc in, one in my bedroom to match my white furniture to keep knicknack, dolls etc in, and one for the spare room to keep craft material in.

Her is a photo of the one in my bedroom

However I would like nicer bookcases for my loungeroom to replace the cheap birch veneer (Billy type bookcases). I have already have this bookcase in my loungeroom

in which I have my crystal and some of my best books. It actually looks slightly darker than it does in the photo. I would like to have 5 more such bookcases in my loungeroom, one for my DVDs and 4 for books. They are more expensive (($399 each) comaped to the $70 each I spent on my current bookcases.

 

[trekkiedane]

I so understand what you mean when you say 'nicer' but we don't share taste as to what it means... not that I don't find your choice nice, I love wood that actually looks like wood -as opposed to chipboard dressed in plastic with a photo of real wood printed on it, I just don't get that! It's not like it's fooling anyone, it will always look like plastic that's supposed to look like wood.

 

[Miss Chicken]

The ones that I want to replace are these ones

Functional but very cheaplooking.

 

[C. Cole-Chakotay]

I have some bookcases my dad made for me over 40 years ago. They aren't the best-looking, but they do the job. I have my nicer bookcases out in the living and dining rooms.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I am, however, planning to go to IKEA sometime this year to get some BILLYs (like these) for the bedroom (that feng-shui-woman is -mildly put- nuts!).

I love BILLYs. I have four in my study.

Can't say I do, they're frakking ugly.

But incredibly practical, and with glass doors on them it means I can store books in the bedroom without having to give dust on my books another thought -ever.

At some point in the future there's going to be world peace... this is possibly achieved by the leaders of the two most antagonistic fractions finding themselves in the same IKEA-store buying BILLYs, and the rest -as they're going to say- is history.

I agree, they're not beautiful. I love them because they are flexible (so many sizes! optional doors!), easy to put together, affordable and fairly sturdy. They make a decent-looking, simple background for the clutter in my study. I wouldn't dream of mixing them with the antiques and other "good" furniture in the rest of my house!

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Since i used to work in a bookstore, I arrange my books the way a bookstore does. Non fiction by subject, like self help, language, history, then by author's last name. Fiction is organized by genre and then author's last name.

I do it by author. It's the easiest system for me. Then I put each author's books in the order in which they were written.

I do a combination of these two things. Although I have never worked in a bookstore, I love bookstores and have spent countless hours in them...and I guess because of that, naturally gravitated to organizing my books as bookstores do.

Bookstores can rarely keep an author's books in the order in which they are written for very long (and most of the time, don't try), but I do this within my own personal library, where possible. Sometimes I even find myself getting annoyed with publishers who change the size of the books coming out in a series precisely because this looks terrible once I get the books on a shelf in chronological order.

 

[trekkiedane]

I hate the (lack of) system used in book stores: they muddle Fantasy together with SciFi so that when I'm looking for books about spaceships and technology it is horrible to have to look through the mass of books about magic and vampires and witches and whatnot. :wall:

Plus: Not all authors stay within one single genre.

 

[Miss Chicken]

It is 11,30pm here and I only have 23 books left to catalogue. I will do them tomorrow.

 

[Miss Chicken]

12 hours later and I have catalogued and shelved all the paperback and hardcover books. However I still have to catalogue most of my Kindle books (about 100).

652 books in the catalogue so far.