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Books can be overwhelming in a home. This week's challenge is about purging and organizing your new and favorite books. This post will accompany your challenge. Clearing out physical books can be overwhelming if you have many of them throughout the home. Today, I will share how to make a home library for you and your family. Let's get your well-organized bookshelf (Affiliate Link) ready for everyone to enjoy.
Jump to:
- Benefits of Organizing Your Books
- First, do these tasks!
- Now Declutter!
- Create a plan
- How to Organize Books on a Bookcase
- Additional tips when organizing books on a bookshelf
- Books of the same height do not need to be on the same shelf.
- Design the books on the bookshelf so they are aesthetically pleasing.
- Position books at eye level that are the most used.
- Place books for easy access for different people in your home.
- Get help if you can't do it alone.
Benefits of Organizing Your Books
When looking at a pile of books, it is essential to know that they can quickly become overwhelming and heavy on the floor, resulting in a safety hazard. When organizing them, you can easily see the benefits. Below are the importance of a well-organized book collection on the bookshelves (Affiliate Link).
- Avoid hazards. Books piled on the floor space can block walkways and easily fall on tiny toddlers and children.
- It can help you be more productive. If you pull from your books often, being able to find the right book at the right time is key (Affiliate Link) to saving time during your day.
- Reduce the amount of dust in your room. If you have dusty books stacked on top of one another, you may want to put them on a closed bookshelf (Affiliate Link) to protect them. Something covering the books will reduce the dust that will appear on them over time. If the bookshelves (Affiliate Link) are well organized, dusting them will be easier. Beautiful glass-fronted library pieces bookcases work great to reduce desks on books.
- Help your children learn to love reading. If you want your children to take up reading, making the space organized and easy to access will enforce the love of reading even sooner.
- Increase your love of reading. Looking at a well-organized bookcase (Affiliate Link) will make you more likely to pull a book out and read.
These are just some benefits of organizing your books on your bookcase (Affiliate Link).
First, do these tasks!
First, place all the books throughout the home in one room. Check inside drawers and closets where books may be stored. Don't forget to go through your moving boxes (Affiliate Link) for books since these boxes (Affiliate Link) are the last things that get pulled out after a move.
Vertical space works best for books. Finding a tall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf (Affiliate Link) will make keeping all your books in one place easier. Ensure that the bookshelves (Affiliate Link) are secured to the walls. Below are some options of vertical bookcases I found on Amazon (Affiliate Link).
Bookcase with Adjustable Shelves
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Bookshelf unit by HOMISSUE 7-Tier Tall
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Bookshelf, 4-Tier Open, 70.8" in Assorted colors
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Bookshelf, Rustic 6 Open Shelves Bookcase
Buy Now →(Affiliate Link)
Now Declutter!
Start the process by removing the books you want to give away. Make a pile of books for donating, selling, or giving to family members. These piles will remind you of the next steps in the process. Below are places to donate your unwanted books.
- Local Library
- Public libraries
- Family members
- Friends
- Children's hospitals
- If your books are about local history, see if you can donate them to the local government agency.
Visit my other places to donate books. Be sure to donate books in good condition.
Create a plan
Make a plan to get rid of each pile of books. Then, get rid of the books that you don't want. Donate them to a nearby used bookstore or visit your nearby public library.
Decide on where you are going to make this new library. Below are some suggestions.
- guest room
- family room
- home office
- dry basement
To decide how to organize the book collection, ask yourself these questions.
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- What do I look for when I need to find a book first?
- Do I hunt for the author's name?
- What are the names of the books?
- Do I look for the type of book?
- Do I look for a color or a picture on the front of the book?
- Do I want the books to look pretty, like a magazine?
- Do the books that are organized need to help me access them quickly?
How to Organize Books on a Bookcase
Below are several creative ways to organize your books (in no particular order):
Option 1: Sort by genre.
Sorting the books by categories works for romance novels, science fiction, realistic fiction, etc… Non-fiction and Fiction genres are too broad if you have several genres you are reading.
Option 2: Sort by series.
If you collect books that share a series or graphic novel collections, you can organize them by author's last name or series title.
Option 3: Organize by color.
Interior designers like to organize the books by color, making them less distracting to the eye. Grouping the same-colored books will give you pleasing colors.
Option 4: Sort in chronological order.
This is useful for organizing scrapbooks, photo albums, and other time-related books like yearbooks.
Option 5: Sort by activity.
If you do crafts or hobbies and have many reference books, maybe you would prefer to organize them by the type of work or activity you use them for in your day-to-day life.
Option 6: Sort by age group.
You may want to store the books by age if you have children. Your younger children could choose excellent books just for their reading level.
Option 7: Organize books by how they make you feel.
Some books may make you sad, while others may make you happy or grateful. Sorting them into these categories will help you if you choose to read more emotionally driven books.
Option 8: Have a section for books you haven't read yet.
This section can be at eye level and easy to access near the door, so you can pop in and grab one when you are going out or away. Having the unread books too far in the room will distract you and slow down the decision process.
Option 9: Sort the book by the author.
If you like favorite authors and have several books for others, you can sort them by their names and trilogy.
Option 10: Organize your books by age period.
These books can be organized by publication date. It may be that you like a particular era of writing and want to sort them by those eras. American Literature is divided into six significant periods. Read more here.
- Pre-colonization.
- The Colonial and Early National period (17th century to 1830)
- The Romantic period (1830 to 1870)
- Realism and Naturalism (1870 to 1910)
- The Modernist period (1910 to 1945)
- The Contemporary period (1945 to present)
Option 11: Organize your books by how long it will take to read them.
Some books may be longer than others, and organizing them by how long it will take you to read them may help you decide what to read and when.
Option 12: Have a place for your library books.
If you go to the library often, having a place for books that need returning will save you time and money. Be sure to have your children place the books on that shelf so they know where they go when they come in and when they need to be returned.
Additional tips when organizing books on a bookshelf
If you need even more organization to find a book, after you sort them into a group, go back and sort them in alphabetical order by the author's last name or title. Either way, it will help you get to the book you want quickly and easily.
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Remember that this additional step of organization may require extra work to maintain. If you don't need this level of detail, I suggest not using it. It's one thing to be organized and another to be meticulously organized. It will be difficult for others who may use the bookcase (Affiliate Link) to keep up with the system.
Books of the same height do not need to be on the same shelf.
While people want all the same books on the same shelf because they are the same height, the topics may be different, and it may get confusing. Only do this if you are just sorting the books for aesthetic purposes.
Design the books on the bookshelf so they are aesthetically pleasing.
Next, you do not always have to lay the books vertically. You can also lay them on their sides and create a horizontal book stack on the shelf. This breaks up the colors of the binding and creates white space.
Position books at eye level that are the most used.
Some books are used more frequently than others, you can place these books at eye level to help you and your family find them easily.
Place books for easy access for different people in your home.
If your little kids want to climb the bookshelves (Affiliate Link), you may want to buy a library ladder. Sturdy ladders will allow them the freedom to look for books everywhere and create peace of mind for you.
If your family members want to take books to another room, you may want to have book carts instead. This will allow them to move around with the books they want to read.
Get help if you can't do it alone.
If you have several books, it's essential to get help. You can hire a professional organizer or have family or friends come over to help you stay accountable.
Other articles I found that also were helpful with organizing books:
HOW TO ORGANIZE BOOKSHELVES WITH A LOT OF BOOKS
27 Insanely Clever Ways To Display Your Books
7 BOOK STORAGE SOLUTIONS FOR SMALL SPACES - another post about organizing books
Whichever method you use for your library, stay consistent and straightforward. This will help everyone in your home remember the system. Remember that books take up a lot of space, so be sure you only keep the ones you love.
Now, it's your turn. Do you organize your bookshelves (Affiliate Link)? What method do you use? Please leave a comment below.
Please note that these are affiliate links through Amazon (Affiliate Link). If you decide to make a purchase, I will earn affiliate fees at no additional cost.
Do you need help organizing your books virtually? I offer virtual organizing accountability coaching services.
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Deb Lee says
I would love to organize by color, especially if the colors are bold and beautiful. But, I often feel compelled to organize by book height. I have no idea why that appeals to me. It just does. I like seeing books arranged from shortest to tallest. Odd but it works for me. =)
Kim says
Books and Clothing are big ones for clients. Books are like old friends or they can be about the person I want to be someday. Especially, if I haven't read the book or maybe I have but didn't put anything to practice. So, its a dream of the way my life could be. For me, I have my books grouped by category. I don't have a lot of fiction, mostly self help books and organizing books.
Julie Stobbe says
I try to get clients to donate books before they become old, outdated and moldy. I enjoy giving clients options, like 5 ways to organize books, so they can use the system that is best for them. If they pick organizing by colour I make sure to discuss the pros and cons of that systems.
Stacey Murray says
I recently worked with a client with a vast book collection. In order to keep the collection at a steady level, I taught him the one-in-one-out philosophy and encouraged him to not bring a new book into the house until he had read a book and paid it forward to a friend, thrift shop, or the recycle bin. We organized his books like you advise in #1--by genre. When he feels like reading a mystery, historical fiction, or humor, he knows exactly where to find it!
Janet Barclay says
Last year, I decided to organize my fiction alphabetically by author, then by title. It bothers me that my series are now out of sequence and that the paperbacks and hardcovers are intermixed, but what can you do?
Sheri Steed says
Books are one of the few things we have in abundance. I'm great at purging other things (and for the most part my family goes along), but I do get push back when it comes to parting with books. I like your idea of thinking about what you would search for if you were looking for a particular book because what works for one person might not make sense to another. Personally color is meaningless to me. I prefer genre or topic for the basis of organizing, but others really connect with the visual appearance of a book or like the way books look lined up on a shelf according to color.
Linda Samuels says
We have a lot of books in our home and home offices. LOTS!!! It would be unwieldy to gather them all in one location to do the editing portion. So instead, every so often, I'll look at one room or one shelf at a time to see if there are any books I can donate. Most often, I'm able to fill up a bag to bring to the library. But the truth is that I love books and I do refer to them after I've read them. Of all the things that we have, the books are the most difficult ones for me to let go of. Even so, I keep trying.
Seana Turner says
I don't tend to keep many books around. The few I have are in a couple of discreet locations. To me, books are the ultimate "reusable," and I like donating them. That said, my husband has quite the collection. He has an office full. He has organized them by category or genre, and it is easy to find what you need. I'd still like him to shed a few more, though:)
Sara Skillen says
Love these ideas - I've tried both organizing by topic and by color. Although the color idea looks nice, for me personally it only works with books I'm not likely to go back and re-read often. Books I refer to over and over I have to have grouped...and I don't think I'm patient enough to try alphabetizing!