^
Of course then you will complain that Ebooks are taking up all your memory after awhile.
Of course then you will complain that Ebooks are taking up all your memory after awhile.
Shelving The Buried Age
- Thread starter Man of Steel
- Start date
How do most of you people catalogue your books? It isn't like, say, movies or comics where everything can be organized alphanumerically.
I have genres like Mystery, Sci-fi grouped together, then organized by author. It becomes messy with Star Trek and Star Wars and other series' where the authors differ.
Anybody have their own dewey decimal system in place?
I have genres like Mystery, Sci-fi grouped together, then organized by author. It becomes messy with Star Trek and Star Wars and other series' where the authors differ.
Anybody have their own dewey decimal system in place?
I shelve by genre (general fiction, sf, fantasy, nonfiction) and alphabetically by author within each genre. Tie-ins are in their own sections, though, usually shelved by series numerically/in release order (Star Trek, Stargate, Babylon 5) or chronologically (Star Wars, Doctor Who).
I don't catalogue my books, but when I had to do cataloguing at work, we used the Library of Congress classification scheme and subject headings, not Dewey. As library work goes, I much prefer reference, systems, and collection development to cataloguing or serials management. Or shelving, for that matter.
Anybody have their own dewey decimal system in place?
The books tend to be divided by format and subject. The two living room bookcases have trade paperback and hardcover mainstream, literary, and historical fiction. The big one in the dining room has nonfiction -- books on Canadian politics, atheism, space, etc. The smaller ones in the dining room are mainly Laura's books from her university courses -- fiction and nonfiction dealing with anthropology, cultural studies, and feminism. Down in the basement, the three bookcases have LPs on the bottom shelf, and the other shelves have graphic novels, comic strip reprint books, books about music, and non-SF movie and TV tie-in books (all the books on Casablanca and Coronation Street, for example). Upstairs there are three bookcases on the landing, one with SF/fantasy hardcovers and trade paperbacks, one with mystery hardcovers and trade paperbacks, and one with special collections: a shelf of Philip K. Dick hardcovers and trade paperbacks, a shelf with the Thorne Smith books and something else -- probably the old Axolotl Press chapbooks and trade paperbacks, all signed by their authors, and three shelves of stuff related to HP Lovecraft. Then in the computer room there are four bookcases of SF media tie-in books, and in the guest bedroom there's a bookcase of mass market mystery novels, some historical fiction, and the mas market paperbacks for the PKD and HPL collections. Most of these bookcases are full, which explains the half-dozen or so boxes of mass market SF, fantasy, and horror paperbacks in the back of the basement.
In some sections, the books are arranged by author and then chronologically; in some areas, they're arranged by series (Blade Runner, Blake's 7, etc). The Star Trek books, because there are so many, are organized according to my own arbitrary system, which gets revised sometimes when the shelves need to be rearranged.
How I arrange my books depends on the series, my Trek and Star Wars books are shelved chronologically. The rest of my books are shelved based on series or author and then depending on wether or not they are stand alone (like my Buffy and Marvel books) I will place them based on purchase date or release date.
Huh?
The Dewey Decimal system is still around, but the broad 820s number for literacy essentially means that, in the fiction section, everything is an 82x.xxxxxxx number. Putting Dewey numbers on fiction is not all that helpful.
So most libraries catalogue and shelve their non fiction books by Dewey, and the fiction by the first three (or four) letters of the author's surname (or sometimes the title of the book if it's by many contributors).
This is further complicated in many public libraries where they often just put (more disposable) MMPBs on racks in broad genres.
Public and school libraries in North America often still use Dewey, but in my experience, universities (I spent a lot of time reading PS3523.O833 at the Dalhousie University library) and special libraries (like my own, at a satellite communications company) use Library of Congress. I haven't had any dealings with Dewey since a cataloguing course in library school more than 20 years ago.
OT, but I hate that library.
Haven't been there since 1986, but the Killam Library at Dal had some really neat stuff in its collection in the early '80s. Wonder if it's all still there....
Very library like. Sections for subjects--general fiction, history, biography, SF/Fantasy, philosophy, etc.--then alphabetical by author's name within subject, but biographies by subject's name. For Trek I take a different approach. Sections for TOS, Next Gen, etc., with the books simply shelved in order of publication, except for trilogies and the like shelved together. The Lost Era is between TOS and Next Gen, bowing to chronology (including Buried Age), and other series get stuck with whichever show fits best, some are just stuck at the end. Not a very orderly system, and as the fiction gets more varied and has invented nonTV-based stuff it's gotten a bit unwieldy, but I can't really see taking the time to devise a new system.
And I also have run out of shelf space, so there are books stacked on top of the books that are properly shelved. Some day when I have some extra money (hint to Marco: buy another story from me
) I just want to go down to Ikea and by a feces load of shelving units.
Scott, I've already been to Ikea to buy new shelves, and I'm still running out of room.
LOL! I was thinking the same thing. Only, seems like I've been waiting forever for this damn title to become available for my Sony reader.
I tend to leave my Trek books in random places on my bookshelves, both here and and my parents' house a thousand miles away. But I always know exactly where whatever book I want to read is, whether it be across the room or in in some box halfway across the country. Not the most efficient system, but it works!
Does Ikea sell rooms to add on to your house or apartment? Now that would be helpful.
Wouldn't it just *dreams*
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