Guest Phil Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 It does concern railway books so I thought this would be a suitable place for the discussion. It's winter time and I have started the rather serious job of helping my friend Jan try and sort out her rather extensive book collection. We started yesterday with a sort of rough idea of a large bookshelf each for the "big 4", then shelves for railway authors, railway engineers, early railways, rolling stock, tramways and light rail etc etc. This did roughly sort the books, but there were lots of split category subjects like, Should the book on Leaders have gone into "big 4" - SR, or railway engineers - Bulleid ? Welcome your thoughts on how your books are arranged, because mine only really run to three shelves !!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
edcayton Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 There was a discussion about this on the radio last week! I have to say that after trying many approaches I now do mine by size and shape! I group all the "series" (eg Middleton Press, Past and Present etc) by number. When I have a large number of similar sized books I go by region first and then post-steam. However, this system is the same as all my other storage systems, ie I can NEVER find the one I am looking for!! Ed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted December 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 17, 2011 Good question, but I think it depends on how many books you've got. I have hundreds of Science reference books (should I admit this?) and these are arranged by theme, eg. Quantum Mechanics, Properties of Matter. History books - by date of the main theme in the book. And the most important section - Railways? Well, in comparison I don't have too many of these. They tend to be DCC/general history/landscaping etc. Bit of a mish-mash. So I've got these arranged by author. I agree with Ed to a certain extent: sometimes a huge tome stands next to an "Aspects of Modelling" book - looks a bit stupid, so a bit of leeway is called for - really so the pile doesn't collapse! So there you have it, Phil. You are probably none-the-wiser (now if I'd mentioned my Star Trek collection!!). Best wiswhes, Jeff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohmisterporter Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I started organizing mine by size, then changed to most often read, then what fitted best onto the shelves. I've always been a bit narked by the discrepancies in sizes of books in general. Some of my railway books are about A4 size, but in landscape format whilst others A4 portrait format. Others from the same publishing house differ by half an inch smaller in one direction, and bigger in the other. Even paperbacks differ, e.g. my Patrick O'Brien books vary in size, some early ones are taller than later ones, then it goes back again to tall ones. I think I have OCD to some extent, but I just wish there was an international agreement on book sizes. Thicknesses can vary, but otherwise books would stack neater if the same height and length. Now I have a Kindle this problem is somewhat reduced. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 You are allowed to do it some other way than using the 'Dewey Decimal' system? Perhaps my view is limited by being married to someone expensively trained in librarianship... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dilbert Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 All librarians, please look elsewhere : 1 - GWRJ - in chronological sequence (index on the computer) 2 - Prototype Locos - lumped together 3 - Prototype Coaches -grouped 4 - Prototype Freight - lumped together 5 - Other Protoype - grouped 6 - Modelling related - lumped together Some are on shelves, the others in differing size piles (floor, desk etc...).. If I changed the system, then I am certain I wouldn't find what I was looking for... dilbert Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG John Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Mostly in boxes where I can't get at them easily! I didn't get the bookshelves built until shortly before I sold my last house. I've been at my new place for two years, and the shelves are now built, but the room they're in not finished, so all the railway books are still in boxes. Any time soon that may change, but a proper filing system is asking a bit much! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted December 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 17, 2011 I divide mine by size/publisher, for example all my Oakwood books are on one shelf. The main reason is that I have several bookcases all with varying sizes of shelf together with at my best estimate about 4000 books to go on them. (I counted up my books about 10 years ago and the figure came to about 3,250!) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ian J. Posted December 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 17, 2011 How about this way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGlN_EaEgPQ&feature=youtube.be Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Kazmierczak Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 All librarians, please look elsewhere : 1 - GWRJ - in chronological sequence (index on the computer) 2 - Prototype Locos - lumped together 3 - Prototype Coaches -grouped 4 - Prototype Freight - lumped together 5 - Other Protoype - grouped 6 - Modelling related - lumped together Some are on shelves, the others in differing size piles (floor, desk etc...).. If I changed the system, then I am certain I wouldn't find what I was looking for... dilbert Dilbert, Your system seems very clear to me. It's all about accessibility; if you can easily find what you're looking for then don't change it. Dewey is useless at trying to classify railways (or railroads as they call it), as it splits the subject into an historical (385) series or an engineering (625) group. Regards, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Deltic Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I tend to arrange my books by size format, but I put soft backs such as the Dave Larkin wagon books in magazine holders to protect them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
halfwit Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 The smaller ones go on the small shelves, the bigger ones go on the taller shelves. Apart from the stacks on top of the bookshelves, chest of drawers etc. Should really organise them better, or at all (although all the modelling titles live together), but its fun looking for the particular book that I want only to get sidetracked by something completely different... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium skipepsi Posted December 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 17, 2011 Heavy ones at the bottom and lighter ones at the top, works for me! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JZ Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Some here, some there and some stacked on the floor until I get a new bookcase. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phil Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Thanks for all your offerings so far chaps. Perhaps I should have explained that Jan's library is probably about 25'x12' with nearly 30 bookcases in it. I sort of started along the intention of "big four" to lump most books into some kind of order, but it just doesn't work. There are also an awful lot of "non railway" books which I have no idea about. Need to think more about it, but welcome any more ideas and thoughts. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Deltic Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Do you have books AND cookies? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ZHPJT2Kp4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 There was a discussion about this on the radio last week! I believe it was all triggered by a tweet last week from the author Alexander McCall Smith about arranging book collections. This seemed to have been picked up by various media outlets and the author was on Radio 4 last week discussing the issue. Various options for book ordering was discussed however one was mentioned as as intriguing method which may actually work quite well for railway books. Allegedly Alistair Cook used to order his books by geographical location. So in his book case the wildlife books about the Artic were on the top shelf, America's on the left-hand side and Australia bottom right etc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium BR60103 Posted December 18, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 18, 2011 At one point my wife arranged books by colour. At least I could find the Penguins. Mine are sorted very much by size, then with an attempt at keeping the American separated from the British. Prolific authors or uniform series may get shelf space together (until I take them out and read them). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium kevinlms Posted December 18, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 18, 2011 I guess there are many ways of putting books on shelves. But the problem of most domestic situations is that space is of a premium & sorting by tile, author or subject can be very wasteful of that space. If you have space for proper library sheving that is probably the best way, but even then there can be problems. A friend when he moved house found that his shelves didn't fit the new room (the height was an issue) such that he didn't tell his wife! They moved again, before she found out. Not the recommended way. So most people, go for height grouping of books, which means ones for the same topic might be forced into another location away from similar titles and so potentially hard to find. So the answer is to use software to keep track of it, especially if the collection is largish. I use BookCAT and it has a field called 'Location', (originally intended for the location of the Publisher, but Google does a better job of finding the address than a decades old book IMO - that is if ever you need it anyway). This field could be used for the bookcase, shelf number if you wished - I haven't bothered. If you had to, you could modify the entry to something meaningful to you, such as box 57 in the spare bedroom! The other advantage BookCAT (or any other book collection software), is that it can be used to keep track of your want list (stored perhaps on your mobile phone). I recken the cost of the software is 'saved' the first time it stops you buying a duplicate of what is already in your cllection. Kevin Martin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Kris Posted December 18, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 18, 2011 Railway books are arranged by area, i.e. GWR / WR - SR - LMS / MR etc. There are also sections for modelling. Within each area I then try to split further to give locations, locos, wagons, coaches etc. For non railway books - fiction get arranged by author and if those books are in a series then in order (OCD?) Non fiction tend to get grouped by subject matter. This system does go to pot every so often when I run out of bookshelf space and have to start pilling the up, whoops need to buy another book case then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Bigcheeseplant Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Colour spine order, same as my CDs you have a nice rainbow effect then! David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 A system recommended to me which solves the problem permanently: Arrange the books in order of most-read to least-read. Take the ten least-read books to your favourite point of disposal - bookseller, eBay, Oxfam, recycling bin etc. Next week/month do the same with the next ten least-read books......... ...After all, nearly everything is on the internet nowadays. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold queensquare Posted December 18, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 18, 2011 I have very little constructive to add to this fantastic thread other than to say that I have a very large book collection, predominantly railways, political and natural history. They are arranged in an order that makes some sort of logical sense to me but would probably make little sense to anyone else. What I find most reasuring is that there are good folks out there who are as analy retentive as I am - most heartwarming I also have a large collection of music, CDs, vinyl and yes, still some cassettes and I suspect I'm not alone in arranging these in a way (periodicaly changing) that only relly makes sense to me. Jerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I use the same sytem I use for everything else in my life - random chaos. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dilbert Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Take the ten least-read books to your favourite point of disposal - bookseller, eBay, Oxfam, recycling bin etc. Next week/month do the same with the next ten least-read books......... ...After all, nearly everything is on the internet nowadays. I do an annual clear out and take them to the local library - they are always accepted. Whilst I can happily send mags to the recycle bin, I can't do this with books - it just doesn't seem the right action to take. Even with the Internet, books still appear to have a large followng, though this over time will probably get reduced. I'd rather read a book and listen to some music than watch the telly - telly programs that are worth watching are recorded and viewed when I want to see them - the only exception to this is live sports transmissions - a few times per annum... dilbert Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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