catalog my library

61 books down…. way too many to go

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Harmless_Dilettante

I just entered the last book in our house. I’m about 150 short of my original estimate of 2,000. However, the next step is some serious culling. Nothing like an inventory to make you recognize the good, the bad, and the ugly.

One more box of books and then I’m done!

Well, actually, one more box of books, then a major purge, and some serious reshelving.

I’m on the home stretch with just one more shelf and a single box left of books to catalog. I’ve given up on scanning in all of Mr. Harmless ancient covers. He probably will never look at our Library Thing page, so getting all of his books perfect isn’t a big goal.

Maybe 50 more volumes to go. It’s hard to tell in the wacky wonderland of Mr. Harmless’ bookcases.

I’m down to just five shelves and one box of books to go. Admittedly, they’re all in Mr. Harmless’ office and he couldn’t care less, but still: ALMOST DONE!

I’m on the home stretch with just two more shelves in my office and then my husband’s office to go. I’m blowing off culling out books until I’ve finished cataloging. (I think I’ve several volumes whose next stop is the used book store.) I’m also not being my usual super anal self about shelving every thing in perfect order. Right now I just want to finish this goal up. Goals that hang over my head too long tend to suck the life out of me.

Library Thing Tip: Sometimes the default cover you see is not the one that gets added to your collection. I usually add about five books at a time, and then look at the “Your Books”, “Covers” page to double check. It’s not really necessary to have the correct cover, but I think it’s kinda cool.

Nope, still not done, but this is kind of a milestone. (Insert Snoopy dance here.)

Cataloging Tip: Sometimes graphics and extraneous information obscures the correct title of a book. Usually, the exact title can be found on the title page, but the Library of Congress entry will also have it. Most modern books have that included on the same page as the copyright and publishing information, usually on the left hand side of the first printed pages.

In the last 24 hours I have moved almost every book I own at least once. The good news, aside from getting a major workout, is that all of my non-reference books are now shelved in my library (mostly) alphabetically by their respective authors. The bad news is that I now have to re-sort and move all my reference books somewhere, AND enter the rest of them. Time for another really brutal purge!

A bit of advice: shelve your books according to the categories you find useful. Originally, I had my books sorted by nonfiction and fiction. Nonfiction then got further sliced up by subject. Fiction was divided into poetry, drama, novel, and short stories. I think I did that about a year or so ago.

It turns out I tend read books for pleasure by author, regardless of structure. I read biographies, especially autobiographies, that way as well. So all of those categories are now just filed together by author.

Personally, I’ve found the fewer categories the better. At just 1500 to 2000 volumes tops, I don’t want to look for something in more than one place if I don’t have to. YMMV

Looks like I’ll have at least 1500 books total when I’m finished, probably more. Though, the library is overflowing a bit, and having the prose section broken up between the library and the guest bedroom is just awkward. I think I see yet another purge coming on.

Pepys recommended 3000 volumes as the idea library size. (Private, I assume.) With the internet being such an amazing reference tool, I figure 1500 isn’t a bad goal. Of course, Mr. Harmless’ collection of about 500 volumes of decaying, foxed, stinky, pulp paperback SF could use some culling, but I think he would instigate divorce proceedings if I tried. Maybe I should go for 1500 of my volumes, and just ignore his?

Another Library Thing tip: If you can’t get your cover scan to load, make sure it’s around 1 MB or so. Larger just blows the website’s little brain and it perpetually loads and loads and never finishes.