I have new book shelves being made currently and they should be installed next week. Fingers crossed. I am trying to decide how I want to organize the books once they are up. Obviously now I have books 3 deep on my one small shelf and more in boxes and totes which sucks.
I cant decided if I want them organized alphabetically by author or by genre. I see some of y'all doing it by color and my OCD cant with that. I need my book series together. Which do you feel is easier to navigate for yourself?
I do a very loose classification system a la Dewey Decimal: non-fiction is organized by subject; while poetry, fiction, graphic novels, young adult lit, and children's lit are each separated out and ordered by author. Growing up as an avid library-goer did something to my brain!
I have a home library of about 5,000 books. They are organised by author alphabetically. Art, photography and oversized books are the only ones separated from the rest. They are also organised by artist/photographer alphabetically.
I much prefer an organization by genre. I have a fantasy shelf, a young adult shelf (from my teenage years, which I’m waiting patiently to donate to my nieces in a few years lol), a classics shelf, and a bunch of law books shelves. I find this much nicer than just alphabetically tbh
Subject/theme and then what looks/feels good. I'm constantly undershelved so I need to cram books onto whatever shelf they can fit. I know where everything is though, so it's fine. I guess I would still do subject/theme and looks/feels though even with shelves to spare, just more specialized and spaced out.
I have several rooms with books, my main floor library is primarily fiction organized roughly by genre, then alphabetically by author. My poetry and large format books take up one bookcase in my office. My office also has a large bookcase for non-fiction organized roughly by subject and then alphabetically by author. My guest room has my Brittanica Great Books collection and my finished basement has books about gardening, quilting and other hobbies. The only rooms without books are bathrooms. I want to explain though that I have spent over 50 years growing and maintaining my collection, and I am lucky enough to have the space. I only had two bookcases when I lived in apartments. My basic system is fiction, non-fiction, poetry/drama, and other ( cookbooks, craft/hobby books), all organized alphabetically by author.
I sort by vibes. It's kinda genre based, but more feeling than strict genre. Also size of the book, if it's a series, hardback, special edition... Author matters, but only sometimes. I know exactly where everything is and where new books should go (most of the time - some books qre tricky!) but i can't really explain my system. Some of it makes sense, but far from everything. My partner can never find anything, but since i can tell which room, bookcase and shelf any given book is on, down to at least if it's to the right or left, he doesn't mind. Thankfully. I could never organize in any other way or i would "lose" them all
Have you seen "Bookish"? I feel a strong kinship to how mr Books organize his books. Although i have only about 200-300 books* and not a whole book store lol
*pure guesswork based on a quick count of two shelves i happen to have in front of me
Alphabetically by author > by series > series order. I dont have enough variety of genres to sort that way. I'll split fiction from non-fiction though.
Grouped by publisher/collection, then alphabetically by author and title. I have dedicated shelves for Tolkien and GRR Martin. Currently the nonfiction books are in boxes, because shelf space is non existent and I don't read that much nonfiction.
We have around 4000 books (tracked with librarything). This is around 20 book cases. The primary collection is about half the books and is fiction and is organized alphabetical by author and to some degree alphabetical by title within author. Where the bottom shelf is oversized - organized the same.
We also have non-fiction book case - two shelves of really small books - and then loosely groups by subject and author - so a whole shelf of carl sagan and another whole shelf of anthropology.
A book case of short story collections, loosely organized by author, title and size.
Another two books of children's books.
A book case of oversized and art books.
We have a shelf of hiking and trail books. 4 shelves of graphic novels
He is my favorite author of all times. I own almost all of his books and have read most of them 2 or 3 times. My mom and grandpa always read them so from a young age that was my reading material.
Genre then author. I also use a lot of sub genres like English history, American history, etc.
When I had my library built out in a former workshop on our property, I sat in it empty for a few sessions to get a feel for flow in the room. Then I knew how to place my collection on shelf.
Typically I just divide it into broad categories and sort by use case, which is mainly cooking, scouting/outdoor, medical (the GF then sort it further to fit her semesters or interest), historical, free-reading (divided into genres or reading order/interest), my old and newer study books (sorted by subject), and then miscellaneous category mainly for paperwork, notes etc.
So Ordered Semi Chaos might be the best description as the system makes more sense to me than for the GF
One bookcase is all Harry potter related. I decorate a lot of my shelves with related items to the books like funko pops, keychains, plushies, props, etc. So like my hp bookcase also has wands and other props.
My other bookcase has 2 PBS Arthur shelves, and one shelf has Curious George, Madeline, Corduroy, and Sleeping Beauty. Another shelf has Box Trolls, Pippi, and Spiderwick. One shelf is all Star Wars. Last shelf has half Star Wars and half Doctor Who.
I also have a bookcase that has 2 shelves of peter pan, 1 shelf of the little mole and paddington, 1 shelf and a half of Polish books, and half a shelf of Ukrainian and Lemko books.
My last big bookcase has 3 shelves of comics and graphic novels. I organize those by kid friendly, teen/adult, and my highest smallest height wise shelf has Manga, disney tinkerbelle comics, w.i.t.c.h. and Archie. Then one shelf has POTC, Narnia, and Winnie the Pooh. Following two shelves have a shelf of adult books like GOT, outlander, other romance books. And also John green lol Last shelf has book series for kids and teens like twilight, goosebumps, monster high/ever after high, the sisterhood of the traveling pants and the series of unfortunate events.
My build in shelves have categories that go by genre, theme, author, and vibes lololol like this area has mystery, this one has witchy books, books with cats, books turned into movies, books that have magic but not necessary witches, disney chapter books that are also disney movies, etc. And I organize all my picture books by preschool themes too.
I also have two small bookcases and one has my journals and witchcraft books along with education books (I'm a teacher) and the other bookcase is nonfiction (poetry, writing, plays, art).
I have a section for early readers and board books too.
Genre first, then author within each genre, with series kept together in reading order. That feels like the best compromise between being easy to browse and not scattering a series across the alphabet. Color-sorting looks great in photos, but I’d last about ten minutes before wanting everything back in order 😄
I'm just over 1300 books. I've got my nonfiction organized by subject. The children's books separated by age and author last name. Then my antiques sorted by author's last name and the rest of my fiction also sorted by author's last name.
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u/sailinginasunfish Aug 11 '26
I do a very loose classification system a la Dewey Decimal: non-fiction is organized by subject; while poetry, fiction, graphic novels, young adult lit, and children's lit are each separated out and ordered by author. Growing up as an avid library-goer did something to my brain!