Book Geekiness

[helwen]

I finally started reading the comic at Unshelved.com last week. Library humor. Of course it goes back to 2002, so I've been reading the archived ones... and am now in 2006. *sigh* I both like and hate finding an online comic... amazingly I'm still getting some work done, but since I haven't really been breathing very well lately I guess it's okay I've found something that requires little physical effort. Although, not having my heart occasionally beating like crazy when all I'm doing is sitting would also be nice.

It's kind of amazing I didn't become a librarian in some ways... when I was a kid I alphabetized all my books -- they were mostly fiction so not much point in using the Dewey decimal system, although I did separate the science fiction from the mystery, etc. I also created my own catalogues for them, by both title and author. The Bible was tricky in the latter respect, so I gave them the author '77 Christians'...

My mother and one of my brothers became librarians (she was in archives and special collections and he's head cataloger at the Stanford U business library -- yes, there are specialties within the field, just like doctors, lawyers, programmers and many other professions).

Unfortunately our current collection of books is rather disorganized, between the move and the fact that we don't have enough space for all the books so many are in storage. I've tried to organize them by type at least, but eventually I hope to have at least the non-set fiction that's out alphabetized. Sets are.... interesting. I don't remember there being so many of them when I was a kid, but then I only had a few of them and the only set I really thought should be in story order on the shelf was J.R.R. Tolkien's LotR trilogy.

Some series have a definite timeline order but the stories don't follow directly on each other's heels. Andre Norton's Witch World is a good example of that. There are enough books in the series though that I just alphabetize and don't worry about the timeline.

I really do need to organize the fiction this winter... by author of course and then by title within each author's collection. It would be nice to have just a _little_ bit of order in the apartment...

Comments

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

You might even want to make yourself a catalog of what you've got, on Library Thing. I've listed all our books, and started the Carolingia group over there too.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I've debated that. I miss having a hard copy though, actual cards. Do you know if there is a way to put data in there and print it out? My original set was by hand but with over 1,000 books that would be kind of tedious.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

You can export to a csv file, which Excel could read and lay out into cards (or pages).

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Cool! Thanks :)

[harpnfiddle.livejournal.com]

I have Library Express. But I need to organize my shelves, too.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thx. It's an ongoing process, isn't it... sigh

[pezgirl247.livejournal.com]

wow, glad i looked at the comments, too.
too many of my books are in tupperware 72 or 56 gallon containers because of my moves. i rotate sets occasionally depending on how long it's been since i've read them 50 times and if i miss them yet.
what i originally wandered into your comments space to say was, "THANKS for the link to Unshelved!!" you're a sweetheart :) (*hug*)

[helwen.livejournal.com]

welcome :)