Comments on: Colour me blindd

By: Psammead

Psammead — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:09:22 +0000

I just stumbled upon this website - http://www.superherodesigns.com/journal/archives/000453.html - and it reminded me of your post about organising your books in order of colour. See - you are not alone!

By: Clair

Clair — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:00:17 +0000

I do love the aesthetic idea of “books by colour”…my bookshelves are currently ordered by the slightly less aesthetic “books by space”… jam them in wherever there is a milimeter of space. there are nowhere near enough bookshelves in my flat at the moment!

By: anna

anna — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:18:19 +0000

I’m not throuwing away the booklets!!! They’re all kept in the little paper envelopes witht the cds!

It’s just the plastic covers that go…

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:23:54 +0000

Oh no you CANNOT be throwing away the CD booklets! *gasp* it’s like ripping all the covers off your book and only leaving the bare, semi-glued pages behind. I am very anal when it comes to organizing my books/CD’s/DVD’s. What I do with music: first I separate the genres (i.e. pop, world, jazz, classical) and then I sort them in various ways, like they do in a record store. All my pop albums are sorted alphabetically on the artist’s last name and then chronologically (from debut to latest release). Jazz used to be sorted instrumental vs. vocal and then alphabetically, now it is just a casual pile (I got a little freaked out by my sorting habits and figured: what better genre to be careless about than jazz?). World music is grouped in geographical zones. Classical music I’m not sure of. I’ve tried splitting vocal-instrumental-soloists, I’ve tried a chronological approach (which the historian in me really likes) and now I’ve arranged my CD’s alphabetically which is also really nice, because now Glass rubs shoulders with Händel.

Ah! I really really love re-organizing my CD’s. I own loads and that way I can reacquaint (sp?) myself with my collection. Also I move a lot, so it is something of a necessity…

Lovely post.

By: KT

KT — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:01:52 +0000

Eeek! I love the idea but how do you deal with size?

My books are catagorised by fiction/non fiction. Fiction is sorted by authors surname, and non fiction by catagories (which on my bookshelves goes bibles, faith, language, pop science, real science, other reference (cookbooks, knot handbook, first aid handbook etc etc), then textbooks wedged together right at the bottom as they are tall and thick and floppy.) ALL my shelves would have to be 14 inches high to accomodate all my books by colour, but some are only 2 inches high! Would be beautifully rainbowed but look all higledy-pigaldy!

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:29:17 +0000

I wish I had the courage to reorder my books by colour; it sounds delightfully Dadaist.

My father-in-law once went on a behind-the-scnes tour of the National Library of Scotland and discovered that they shelve all their books by size as that optimises the use of space. As the public never access the shelves, simply requesting a book from the librarians who look unit location and have it brought up, it works perfectly.

If you combined your colour system with a location index on the computer you’d be ready for any smartypants who said “bet you can never find anything”, even if you COULDN’T remember its colour.

Re #35, I find French books worrying that way too. So I turn them over before shelving them. While part of me worries that the words will all run out and leave my landing covered in bits of Goscinny and Perec, it makes the shelf look tidy. And tidiness, as we all know, is next to godliness (at least, if they both have yellow spines).

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:21:46 +0000

My partner did this when we moved last August, and the books are still like that. It’s great - since I generally know what all my books look like, I can find them from across the room in seconds with my glasses off. And it looks beautiful; I’m particularily fond of the eau-de-nile shelf.

By: Damian

Damian — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:16:18 +0000

Clare

Do you have a separate shelf for your own books - the books you’ve written - or do they comingle with the rest?

By: Clare

Clare — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:33:53 +0000

Hahahahaha. And ha. And [ha].

[stifled giggle]

Idiots.

By: drew

drew — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 02:40:07 +0000

I hate to be one of those people but your idea sounds familiar.