Reference system - books

manynothings

Registered
Hello,

This is slightly off the topic of GTD, but how do you organize books (physically and digitally)? Asking here since I like the responses I can get from this forum.

Thanks,

manynothings.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
Hello,

This is slightly off the topic of GTD, but how do you organize books (physically and digitally)? Asking here since I like the responses I can get from this forum.

Thanks,

manynothings.
My wife and I are both academic types and we have a lot of books. in my home office, I have two large sets of bookshelves, and books are organized so each shelf or set of shelves covers one or more related topics. These are all work-related reference books. I probably need to do a bit of refactoring, but it’s like a personal Library of Congress system. Different rooms hold different books. The family room has classic literature, the living room has travel and some overflow. Our bedroom has our favorites of all types. The finished and unfinished parts of the basement hold books not looked at too often, things like paperback mysteries and science fiction. If you we’re looking for some rigid filing scheme, this isn’t it. I have known a few people who derive pleasure in being able to list their books by topic, author, year acquired, location, et cetera. The question you have to answer is: what organizing my books means to me and why do I want to do it? BTW, iits hard to work around the apps of the prominent ebook vendors, and their tools are IMHO not very good.
 
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Oogiem

Registered
how do you organize books (physically and digitally)?
Physical books are sorted into categories that make sense and shelved together in logical (to me) order. So for example all science fiction is alphabetical by author then within author alphabetical by series and within series in the order in the universe in which the stories happen not the publication order. My farming books are barns and fences, pastures, hay and forages, nutrition, then genetics then by animal species sheep first then other animals. Sheep books start with general then move to specific, general care followed by lambing for example. Fiber art starts with wool, cotton and flax, fleece characteristics, preparing fibers for spining, then to spinning, nalbinding, sprang, netmaking, knitting, weaving, from warp weighted and belt looms to counterbalance to countermarche to dobby and other types of looms. Then to sewing and clothing, from less tailored to couture.

It's almost impossible to sort e-books into anything useful. I usually read ebooks on my iPad and usually kindle format so I'm tied to the Amazon approved sorting and categorizing methods.

So for all book types I have a full inventory in BookPedia. I'm slowly putting what bookcase and what shelf each book belongs on into the database to aid in finding a specific book or more importantly, putting it back whnen I am done using it.
 
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