Call me crazy, but I love to organize bookshelves. Of course, I love to organize almost anything but bookshelves are naturally easy to organize as they have specific categories.
And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t say at least once every few blog posts that the most important first step tackling any organizing job is purging! Be realistic about what books you actually think you’ll read again and which ones you can donate. Calgary has some great options for book donations like the Public Library and the CBC Calgary Reads Big Book Sale coming in May!
So, if you’ve done your purging and are ready to tackle the shelves, here’s how you can do it:
#1. Alphabetically, by Author
I find this works better when you’re dealing all with one genre (ie: fiction), but you can use it to mix and match, like we did here:
#2. By Genre
In this office, we used the different sections to separate the genres: Fiction, Finance, Self-Help, Fashion, etc. This works well if you often use your library for reference and need quick access to a specific category
#3. By Color
And here is another option, this time using colour coding. It adds a bit of life to the space and gives it a bit of an artistic dynamic. I especially love doing this with kids books too as it’s a fun way to work on their colours.
The great thing about organizing is there is no hard and fast way to do things – the most important thing to remember is do it in a way that works uniquely for you. And if you’ve got it, a little artistic flair doesn’t hurt either like the image below, courtesy of Colour My World
