How NOT to Organize Your Books if You Intend to Find Them In the Future - Part I

I'd done the alpha by author thing. I had even - don't laugh - grouped by "subject" if you can imagine it.  After months of construction, I got the go-ahead to place all my books back on their pretty little shelves. They were covered with drywall dust and each one had to be cleaned by hand. Lovingly. When all the books were cleaned, it occurred to me that it would be easier - faster - to arrange by color. And it was, I tell you, it was.  Easier to arrange them. Easier to get them off the floor and back in their nooks. No need to create tons of little piles by author, then arranging them by height by author and so on. Gather all the orange books and in you go. Finding a book in this rainbow madness, however...

It's easier than you'd think for books that you've had a great while. I've got a photographic memory, I'm a designer-by-day, I remember what every cover looks like so I thought I'd be just fine.  Three kinks in this not-so-well thought-out plan:

Kink #1: Even if you've committed the cover art to memory, there's no guarantee that the spine has any correlation. In many cases, it doesn't.  A brilliant yellow cover may have a black spine. A subtle brownish/beigey cover may have a red spine. It's a crap shoot sometimes.  But at least with this problem you can usually get close, warm and work your way to the book you need from there.

Kink #2: If you happen to buy/get/receive/mooch/borrow large piles of books at a time - particularly new ones that you've not yet had the opportunity to memorize by color, cover art, whathaveyou - it becomes difficult, nearly impossible, to sort out where you might have placed that book.  What the picture above doesn't reveal (it being only a small cross-section of the rainbow madness I've created) is that I've got stacks of books perched atop those that are neatly in their cubes. Yes, I managed to pull them out of fed-ex packages and at least stack them by colour, but without a proper study of cover and spine art, I find myself bending down, squinting at the tiny title text along the spines.  Somewhat unexpectedly, when spines of the same color flock together, the text printed on those spines seems to blur and is more difficult to read as it does not have the benefit of "popping" off the shelf as it would in, say, a bookstore where books are arranged alphabetically and so rarely have to compete with spines of the same hue.

Kink #3: While this may have been obvious to some before setting out on such a ridiculous arrangement scheme, it only became clear to me once all the books were on their shelves. A LOT of books out there have black or white spines. What does this mean? It means that if I need to find a book and it has, say, a white spine, I could stand in front of the white section for a long time. A half hour, even, and still walk away empty handed. In fact, there are two books that I thought I remembered as having white covers (again, white covers do not necessarily equal white spines) and that I'd hoped to re-review for a lengthy post on recent weddingish fiction. Have you seen that post? Nope. Why? Because I still can't find them after hours of looking!  I know they are right in front of my face, but I simply cannot locate them!

There are, however, some odd findings with this arrangement of books by color, some peculiar facts that fascinate me. More on those & additional pics of the rainbow express bookshelves tomorrow & throughout the week...

Comments

[cswingle]

Long ago I was in Susan Issac's house and was intrigued to discover that her library (quite extensive, IIRC) was "organized" by spine color. It looked really cool, as does yours.

[Cindy]

I salute you. This is awesome, and really eye-catching. I'm now considering doing the same thing despite the drawbacks.

[Isabella]

I've considered trying this, but reasoned with myself that I would never find anything. I can't believe anyone I actually know has done this. You actually let fiction and nonfiction intermingle?

[Melanie]

Several design blogs that I read now and again have featured this organizational trend. It's f***ing ridiculous, and I have lost all respect for my fellow commenters who are going to try this at home. But then I'm a librarian, and apparently far more impassioned about this than I should be. It's just if I have one more patron to ask, "I'm looking for this book... You know, the one with the purple cover..." I'm going to absolutely scream. ;)

[Pete]

Sure makes you realize how many Penguins you own, doesn't it?

[kimbofo]

One word: gorgeous.

[tod goldberg]

The awesome thing is that I think I see my last book. The worrisome thing is that I looked.