Book storage

I am in the process now of reorganizing our books.

A year ago, I put some books in a box in the closet, to try that out. We have space issues too. I regretted it because they were not handy and were covered up by other heavy boxes. Even though I typed a list of titles first, I still could not remember what books I had in there. Sometimes I just knew I had a particular book and could not find it. Now I have pulled that box out and put them on the shelf. This helps me remember what I have since I am very visual. You never know when you may want to use that book that is in storage.

What kind of shelving are you using now? The best thing I did was get tall, deep, heavy shelving. Floor to ceiling shelving on a full wall would be ideal, but would not work well in our home. Money is tight so I stalked craigslist for a while and found a great set under “entertainment center” for $250 for 8′. These are heavy, high quality and thick. Dh said it was like moving a safe and he used an appliance dolly. The two 30″ bookshelves are each 16″ deep. This is great for large books. For smaller books, I put them in small baskets to fit two rows on the shelf to utilize the whole shelf space in an orderly way. The tv armoire will be repurposed to a clothing armoire by hanging a rod inside, which helped solve a closet dilemma in a bedroom. I sorted through books and got rid of some less desirable ones too.

In short, do not store books where not easily accessible. Make good use of your limited space with proper shelving. Keep only the good books that you and your family will likely use and enjoy and learn a lot from. I have no idea what your home and library look like, so this may not have been very helpful to you.

I recently posted about this exact issue….

http://reflectionsfromdrywoodcreek.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-love-of-history-grows.html

We’ve outgrown our “school room”, for lack of a better term.  My dh did build shelves in the garage and over summer I moved the bulk of our history collection there.  This does make me a bit nervous since many of these books are out of print and very hard to replace.  However, I want them accessible for all to see so they get used, read, and cherished.  I’m afraid if I pack them away for a more suitable climate condition, they will be forgotten.  The books are all stored along interior walls adjoining heated living space.  They are dry, up off the cement, and we walk through, use, and see this area multiple times a day. 

I have our Landmark and Childhood of Famous American collections down a hall in the living room of our home and I find they don’t get chosen as much as the history books on the shelves in the garage.  So I think visibilty is key!!

My dream is to open a living library at some point.  We just need to find the time and money to finish space.  For now, I’m putting it in God’s hands 🙂

Blessings,

Melissa

Ah! Sara, I glanced at it but am very behind on computer work! I didn’t connect the dots! Sorry! I’m so sorry it’s hard. I’ve been in those places where dh and I seemed to not be on the same page sometimes (and in the early days of library planning this was one of the areas at times.) Being the strong-willed person I am (Charlotte would call me weak-willed at times) it was difficult for me to submit to his wishes but was always blessed when I did. Sometimes I got “my way” sometimes I didn’t but I’m always in God’s will when I submit to my husbands authority. I will earnestly be praying God’s will for your library. And that you find space for those treasures.

Blessings, sister!

An idea that occurred to me when reading your last post: Could you put drawers on caster wheels under you beds and organize the books in those? You could then label them with topic/subject and still access them easily for use. 

-Rebecca

I don’t know if you can get them already to go. We just took some old drawers we had (the dresser had mostly disintegrated), drilled holes into the bottom of the drawers and put the caster wheels in. It was pretty easy. I think we found the wheels at Walmart. 

Just make sure you get the caster wheels you want. There are two kinds – ones that only moves front to back and ones that can move in circles. 

-Rebecca

Hi Sara,

Sorry to hear about the several facets of your book storage dilemma. If you haven’t already, my suggestion would be to to add a second layer of books on the shelves you already have. On some of my shelves I have 2 or 3 layers and it doesn’t look unsightly or odd at all. In fact after visting several times I have had people comment they are amazed at how many books I have tucked away on my shelves when they actually see me retrieve something from them, they “never would have guessed”. It does cut down on visibility of the books in back, but as far as not damaging the books it is the best solution I have found.

Books don’t like cold, damp, hot, humid, or being stored laying flat or on their sides. If a book is stored over time other than upright on a shelf it can damage the spine. When I had my book business and had to store my merchandise on shelves in the shed I used http://www.damprid.com/ to help control the climate and keep from damaging the books. It helped a lot.