Lawrence Person's Futuramen

One problem with having a large library that you’re always adding books to is keeping up with shelving them in the proper place.

I have all my fiction shelved in alphabetical order by author within three form-factors (hardbacks, trade paperbacks, and mass market paperbacks). I leave “expansion joint,” i.e., empty slots in which to insert new acquisitions, on every shelf, but eventually they fill up and it’s time to add a new bookcase. Since they are shelved alphabetically by author, I can’t just stick the books randomly onto the new bookcase if I want to find them.

When I started out collecting books, I got the regular crappy 5-high, assemble-them-yourself particle board bookcases they sold at Target, just like every other college student. (Back then, anyway. I wonder if today’s college students use bookshelves at all.) Later, when I was a little less broke, I had some real 5-high wooden bookcases made for me (one fixed shelf in the middle, three adjustable shelves plus the base) to match the existing particle board shelves. later, when I started running out of room, I started getting 8-high bookcases (one fixed shelf, six adjustable shelves plus the base) to maximize the amount of storage space. in fact, when I moved into my new house, I immediately had three more 8-high built for me (along with a custom paperback shelf) to store books I hadn’t had room to put out in my apartment.

Because of the way the room is laid out, I’ve been replacing the five-high bookcases in my living room/library with the eight-high bookcases, and moving the five-highs back into a sort of den (with a fireplace, a futon, a coffee table, an old sofa for my dog, and the rest of the fiction bookshelves). But to do everything the “proper” way is a fairly labor intensive process:

1. Order the bookshelf
2. Take delivery
3. Stain the bookshelf (and this step and the next one might take several months, depending on whether I think it’s too hot to mess with, since I do it out in my garage)
4. Varnish the bookshelf (actually, polyurethane)
5. Remove all the books off the 5-high shelf (in this case, it was in the middles of the S section)
6. Dust the 5-high shelf with a dust mop
7. Dust/polish the 5-high with lemon Pledge
8. Move the shelf back into the den, where it now falls in the middle of the V section
9. Move about two and a half shelves of books over from the V-W section. This is how much I need to move to incorporate all the proofs I’ve added to the library after clearing out the Nova Express review pile.
10. Stock the remaining shelves from the V section in the living room.
11. Now move books over from the next shelf.
12. Repeat until you reach the books removed from the 5-high and stacked on the table, at which point you incorporate those.
13. Keep in mind that every time I clear a shelf of books, I:
    1. Take a dust mop to the shelf
    2. Dust the shelf with lemon Pledge
    3. Flip the adjustable shelf over to prevent bowing
    4. Let the shelf dry at least an hour or two; and
    5. Add expansion joints (i.e., empty spots) when you move books back onto the shelves. There are also a few odd cases, where I leave additional spots if I think I’ll be adding be adding more than a book or two to that shelf, such as books I’ve already ordered, very prolific writers I pick up everything by (Joe R. Lansdale and Charles Stross both come to mind), or series gaps I know I want to fill (I’m missing some of the Datlow/Windling Year’s Best volumes).
14. Continue the book-moving process over a course of weeks until all the shelves have been cleaned and stocked.

This is not a difficult process, but it is time-consuming (and by now I’m mostly done). But it prevents heartache in the long-run, because my collection remains alphabetized, the shelves clean and in good shape. And I can always lay my hands on a book when I need to. (There was another bookseller/collector who packed up his library willy-nilly, depending on what fitted in the box, and it was very frustrating experience trying to pull things from those myriad boxes when he wanted to sell something to me…)