Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: library book organization

This topic has 10 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 1 month ago by Sue.

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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April 28, 2011 at 8:04 pm
rejoicevermore13
Participant
ok, well first i want to briefly introduce myself as i dont know that i have ever posted before, just learned a LOT from all of you wonderful ladies:) I have 2 dd (1 and 2 1/2) and i have been learning about CM for over a year now and hoping to hs my 2 little girls with SCM eventually….well, in preparation i have been collecting lots of great living books…in addition to the VERY LARGE collections of books both my husband and i entered marriage with…and well, yikes, now we have a TON of books, and I LOVE IT! BUT…..i am rather at a loss as to how to organize them all, and how to keep track of what i have to help prevent buying too many duplicates. I was hoping some of you could maybe share what works for you…when it comes to organizing books in your home ( how you like to categorize/store etc…what works well to help you find books you want when you need them?? or any other great resources you may use) within a couple years as finances permit, we would like to turn our living room space into a library of sorts, very basic, but with all our books in (mostly) one place. right now they are scattered in shelves in every room of our house…. and also if any of you keep a list going of what you have…how do you do that/what program do you liket?? what information have you found helpful to have in a book list of personal books? how do you keep from buying duplicates?

I really appreciate any help you may be able to give! (or any other great online idea resources you may know of!)
April 28, 2011 at 8:51 pm
suzukimom
Participant
Wish I knew… I found out I have 3 copies of Stuart Little and 2 of Just so Stories, etc.
Mind you, if you are doing things as a family, having more than one copy lets everyone follow along.
I had considered putting dots to colour code each AO year…. but now that we aren’t going to do AO anymore I’m glad I didn’t!
April 28, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Sara B.
Participant
Well, since I just got back from yet another book sale…..

Right now I have 4 lists going in Excel: The SCM list, the AO list, the list of books I want that aren’t on those lists, and a master list of all books we own. I have a ton of books, 1200+, and growing all the time (and it’s yard sale and book sale season – yikes!), so this is getting to be a pain… I want my hubby to create a database for me to keep track of it all – he said he could even do one that allows me to use it on my phone, too. He is a programmer, so this is doable for him. 🙂 I know I am lucky….. I have looked at the online ones, but none are what I am looking for. I share books with my mom, as well, and my grandparents have some books I use for school on occasion, so it would be nice to have a space that accomodates different “libraries” in your own little “network,” kwim? LOL
As for organizing them on the shelves…… I haven’t gotten that far yet….. Many of them are still in boxes after I enter them into my lists. I need to re-organize badly, and hubby needs to build me some more shelves….
April 28, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Sue
Participant
Isn’t Library Thing a place where you can organize and access your personal booklists? I have heard that mentioned on this forum, but I’ve only visited the site once for a few minutes. Maybe someone who has used it (Bookworm? Missingtheshire?) will chime in on this.
The site is http://www.librarything.com.
WBNITH, (Would Be Nice If This Helps) lol
Sue
April 29, 2011 at 12:01 am
Sue
Participant
Okay, I found two threads here that mention Library Thing and a few other book cataloging sites.
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/does-anyone-catalog-their-books#post-13804
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/book-database#post-36236
I hope you find something that suits your needs. Happy cataloging!
Sue
April 29, 2011 at 1:57 am
Sara B.
Participant
There were 2 major things with the online databases I saw out there. First, some you had to pay a pretty penny for (one I remember was like $20/mth!). Second, I did find a few places where you could share your booklists, BUT – it was either all public or you couldn’t share anything. 🙁 I just want to share libraries with a few certain people so we can interlibrary loan to each other. I don’t want the world to know which books I own or want to get for my collection, kwim? I don’t even care what the ISBN is or what the cover looks like. I just want the list with whose library it’s in, and make it easy for us to “request” it from each other when we need/want it. Just like a regular library – you know how they can share between libraries in their own county (and to a lesser extent, throughout the state)? That’s what I want. I want our own little “county” with our own little ILL service (except we’ll have to do the driving ourselves LOL).
I hope I’m making sense….
April 29, 2011 at 2:06 am
suzukimom
Participant
Yes, Sara, that is what I want too! (although I do like the book cover…) I also want to easily get the various lists….
April 29, 2011 at 2:38 am
Sara B.
Participant
Hubby was wondering if there would be a market for this kind of thing. I told him I’m sure there is. You just confirmed it for me! 😉 The reason I don’t care about book covers is because different printings usually have different covers. I could care less which printing it is so long as it’s not abridged or whatever. My mom likes having the same cover (like for series), but I don’t care. I just want the good stuff inside! 😛
April 29, 2011 at 3:24 am
suzukimom
Participant
Ah, I don’t care if it is the same colour… lol.
I’d want to be able to easily enter books (ISBN works good for me) and get the info to come up. I don’t necessarily need the extra info other sites I’ve tried has, or discussions, etc… I’d like to be able to have various categories (tags, or whatever), and be able to visually (I am a very visual person) see what I have, what I want, or both. The ability to select people to have access would be great (not that I’m sure who I would share with…) but wouldn’t want the whole world to see it. And if there was a mobile version of the website (assuming web based)… not an APP, but a mobile website with fewer graphics and good interface (say like the mobile version of gmail or mobile version of project gutenberg), I’d really be thrilled, because I could access it with my Kindle anywhere. (ability to sort/filter would be key for the mobile version!)
lol
April 29, 2011 at 3:28 am
sheraz
Participant
I read somewhere tonight that MTS uses collectorz.com, so checked it out. Looks better for me – I personally am not ready to share that part of my life with the Library Thing or GoodReader, which are online social networking. The collectorz.com has a home program that has a couple of levels that you can choose from – they let you post on blogs, lists, electronic devices, etc. But the the main program is for you – and can stay that way. The basic program was $29.95 and you can get a little bar code scanner for another $20 that will scan the code and load the info for you, and automatically gets your ebooks and audiobooks off your computer. I think that MTS said ahe also uses it for her music and dvd collections. I think it sounds good to me. And Sara, if your hubby could come up with one where we could share with other CM users, that would be so cool!
April 29, 2011 at 5:03 am
Sue
Participant
I’m still looking at Library Thing and Goodreads to decide which might be best for me. They are both free, except that LT has a limit of 200 books at the free level, then there’s an annual fee. It’s not a large fee, but still…. Goodreads allows unlimited entries for free. I’m just not quite sure what the advantage is of one over the other.