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For book lovers, an at-home library is way more than just a practical space for storage. Instead, those bookshelves become living, breathing features, and are often the things we spend most of our time admiring or toying with when we’re at home.
It’s for this reason that attractive editions of books often become so important to bibliophiles, and it’s also why we’ll always seek striking storage solutions like these timber shelves over a rushed or cheap bookcase. Unfortunately, no matter how attractive your books or shelving happen to be, your efforts to bring this space to life can still start to falter if you don’t also consider which style of bookish organisation best suits your needs.
Admittedly, most book lovers will continually reorganise and play around with their living libraries – that’s all part of the fun! However, most of us do this as part of a far wider quest to settle on our own true book organisation method at last and, when we finally find a method that helps us to always make the most of our books, it’s not unheard of for us to stick to it like glue.
Of course, there’s no right or wrong when it comes to book organisation, and the style that works for you is undeniably the right option. The question is, what exactly does your chosen style say about you as a person and a reader?
# 1 - The ‘anywhere that it fits’ method
As much as they might dabble their toes in more organised methods, many book lovers opt for what we like to refer to as the ‘anywhere that it fits’ method. As the name suggests, this technique quite simply involves putting books wherever they’ll go without considering how that fits within a wider order. Most often, the book lover who adopts this technique is a pretty voracious reader, and the chances are that they acquire books at a fast rate too. Equally, readers with limited space to play with, but with a passion to still maintain a decent collection, will often turn to this option.
# 2 - The ‘always in alphabetical order’ method
If you ask the majority of book lovers, alphabetical order will often come up trump as the book organisation method they aspire to. After all, this is how most bookshops and libraries organise their reading material, and it’s a pretty handy technique. However, the reader who manages to make this method work for them is a determined and surprisingly rare breed. This is a person who takes as much pride in arranging their books as they do in reading them, and who isn’t afraid to spend a fair amount of time rearranging. They’re also, often, readers who prefer to perfect a tailored collection of carefully selected texts, rather than someone who regularly acquires multiple books.
# 3 - The ‘it’s got be genre’ method
For some readers, the trials and chores of keeping on top of an alphabetical reading collection are simply too overwhelming. Instead, these individuals will prefer something like a genre-based method, which provides much of the same structural benefits but with the plus of a little more wiggle room. In particular, readers who stand to benefit from a genre-based organisation are those who read widely, and who have large libraries with which they can truly display the full extent of their genres without having to worry about running out of space in each category.
# 4 - The ‘can’t we do it by colour’ method
While it’s something that many more traditionalist library owners still struggle with, colour-coordinated libraries have been growing in popularity recently, and many book lovers simply love the statement that this method can make. Most often, bibliophiles who adopt colour coordination methods are those who want to make their books the main feature of any room, and who are looking to add flair to their decor with the addition of literature, rather than simply treating books as a practical, if uninspiring, addition to any space.
A final word
These are just four of the top library organisation methods of the moment, with other popular choices also including combinations of these techniques, or even more complex methods like chronological order (yes, really!). Of course, the main thing here, and one thing that every reader will agree on, is the fact that our spaces are filled with the books we love best. However, it might be time to take a step back and consider what your chosen method of book organisation actually says about you.
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