Organized chaos...
As I mentioned the other day, the unpacking of our books and CDs has led to a slight disagreement in the Pink Cupcake household as to how they should be arranged on our shelves. In our old house, both Mr Cupcake and I agreed that it was best for CDs to be arranged alphabetically by band or artist (and where we had more than one CD by a band/artist we would usually arrange them chronologically...yes, I know, we are that anal). Books were arranged under a few categories (fiction, non-ficton, law books, cookery books) and within those categories books of a certain type (e.g. political biographies) and those by the same author were put together. It wasn't a hard and fast system, but it was easy to locate things. Everything was just fine and I assumed we'd take a similar approach in our new home. Clearly, I assumed too much...
As we unpacked the boxes, Mr Cupcake just started randomly lining books and CDs on the shelves. To begin with, I thought he just wanted to get everything out, so that he could see where things were. I was wrong. He apparently thinks it adds fun, excitement and spontaneity (his words) to life if you have to pour over the bookcases for ages whilst trying to find something to read or listen to. You know, whilst desperately searching for your favourite recipe book so that you can have a meal prepared before your friends arrive, you might instead stumble upon a Woodhouse and be seized by the desire to read a little Jeeves and Wooster. No?! I don't think so either.
The whole thing reminds me of a post that Julie wrote about jarring transitions in itunes (when she asked people who play their itunes library in order (rather than randomly) to note down songs/artists that sit oddly next to one another). Our entire book and CD collections are now one big mass of jarring transitions. I just don't think that Noam Chomsky should sit with Tolkien, or that the Master of the Senate should have cocktail recipes for company. Sylvia and Hilary don't look too happy to be shelf-buddies either, although I have to say they're a better match than Jamie Oliver and the Iron Lady herself. Don't even get me started on the CDs...
So, dear blogosphere, I seek your advice. Should we:
(a) Go back to the old system or a version thereof.
(b) Throw caution to the wind and keep Mr Cupcake's system (if you can call anything that disorganized a system!).
(c) Have a whole new system. What do you do? How do you arrange your libraries?
posted by Pink Cupcake @ 6:18 pm
11 Comments:
a! a! a! because the answer to "how do you arrange your libraries" for me is "a"
I have thousands of books, and they are arranged in a system that makes sense only to me. Often I will put books near each other if I think the authors would like each other. And I don't always put a book back where I got it from. So it is also kind of random.
My husband has separate shelves for his books (he does not have nearly as many). His are arranged by size or something weird like that.
I have always resisted the alphabetical order -- that just seems too rigid to me.
How frustrating! The library HAS to be alphabetical by author within basic categories. How do you expect to ever find anything otherwise? My husband is anal about everything except this, so I've had to take control and arrange ours. And what about the closet? My clothes have to hang facing the same direction by color and types. Again, my husband doesn't care. Guess who does the laundry?
Julie - You're the best! I knew I could rely on you to be the voice of sense. :)
Jo(e) - I love the idea of authors being next to other authors they might like. We certainly don't have that much harmony on our shelves right now! I also quite like the idea of separating my husband's books from mine, but I fear that may lead to further heated debate as to the ownership of certain books!
Kathy - I couldn't agree more! The closet is our next big unpacking project for the weekend, so there may be yet more disagreements... :)
Thanks for stopping by my blog, by the way.
I love Jo(e)'s idea; alas, it would not work for my OCD tendencies :)
I organize by field and then alphabetically. Perhaps when I have finally meshed my literature/fiction collection at home with all my other books, I can try something more creative with them instead!
My system is very similar to jo(e)'s. It's kind of my genre, and kind of arranged emotionally. It all has an internal logic, at least for myself.
It helps that my husband keeps his books separate from mine.
My books are randomly strewn hither and yon (part of the reason why Library Thing is my new best friend), but my CDs are alphabetical. Make of that what you will.
Kristiface & Q of WP - Thanks for sharing your systems... :)
Phantom - I've been thinking about using Library Thing for a while now, thanks for reminding me about it.
My books are organized thusly:
Short stories are in the guest room, shelved by category (Great Literature paperbacks? top shelf)
Collectibles (aka "Signed Firsts" and books that are older than my parents) are down in the library in the glass-fronted shelves
All others are organized by category and then alphabetically.
Our collections are arranged organically or maybe that should be stratigraphically. That is, on acquisition, they go wherever we can find room.
This means that a sort of zoning has occurred over the years as our interests have evolved.
It's definitely not a "system" but it kind of works at the moment.
God help us if we ever move house. Then we will be faced with the same dilemma as you and Mr C!
Liz - Sounds like a very good system to me. I love the idea of keeping the most special books in glass-fronted shelves.
rockmother - I totally get where you are coming from! I think that's pretty much how we ended up with our previous system, but the move has thrown all of that into turmoil. ;-) Thanks for stopping by my blog - I'll definitely pop over to your blog very soon...
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