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School room: what you can't do without!
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Oh, now Linda just raised the bar. Who needs a home library when you could live next to an extraordinary one at Oxford! That’s a great idea. 🙂
Well, it looks like everyone agrees on the more bookshelves issue. At the moment I really only have the one.(pout) There are still lots of books in boxes and stuck in closets or night stands, but these are not school books — or just not yet books. I only have the two boys and we’ve just started our hs journey, so I fully expect this to change, and my sister-in-law has offered me three bookcases — I just need to find an opportunity to get them. I recently acquired a 5 foot tall 2 door cupboard (cheap Walmart jobby) which I stuck in the corner of the living room. I am organizing it for our most used items. I also have no spacific place to keep everything, but am considering stealing the spare room in the basement for homeschool purposes.
As much as I love books, and would love a home library, I can’t imagine ever having space for as many bookcases as many of you seem to have. How can you possibbly keep track of everything? It sounds like you may own more books than our little public library (which unfortunately is 20km away. I only get there once a week and it never fails that when I order books they arrive the day AFTER I was there.)
You ladies have given me so many great ideas! Love the double sided display on foam board! And all those beautiful pictures of libraries and furniture pieces etc. This is a great threat!
4myboys – I’ve been building our home library for 12 years now, ever since I found out I was expecting my oldest. We now have 5000+ books. I’m an avowed bibliophile, I’ll admit. I do lend books to my co-op members frequently, but the books are for our use and I’m pretty particular as to what I buy. I use Bookpedia to keep track of our books and it works great!
4myboys … I am with you! I love books. Love them! I love to read. I love finding information, learning, researching … I am a nerd I guess. BUT … I am also a neat freak so I recently purged us of all the extra books (subject matter books) and all the books we’d read. I don’t re-read and if I do borrowing works better for us. We are really really attached to our local library system. I enjoy getting out and about too so that works for us. I only have two children, maybe that is why it works? And it’s so much fun to dive in to the stacks. Anything you want at your fingertips. I also want to mention that I feel information changes so fast that when we’re looking for a specific book on a subject … well, I want the library or an online journal that is the most current. Of course the parts of a plant might not change but I don’t want to look at some aged image if I can log in and see it in 3D with bells and whistles! 😉 I’ll stick with my one bookcase.
Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver and the other gold.
This applies not only to friends, but also to books. 🙂
I love having a lot of bookshelves and the interlibrary loan system.
Exactly, Claire. I purged our books last summer — got rid of everything that was too childish for them, or that I knew we wouldn’t read again or at all. I’ve still got more to go through, but they are mostly boxes of novels I’ll never read again and they are packed up and out of the way where they aren’t easy to get to. I usually trade novels with my mother-in-law, sisters or girlfriends or borrow from the Library, and same with the boys. While I love books, the look, feel, smell, everything, I don’t tend to re-read very many. I do have some favorites that I keep around, though, ones I hope the boys will enjoy as they get older. I always wonder — when does collecting start becoming hoarding?
I would think the definition of hoarding would involve an obsession with keeping things so much to the point that it takes over other aspects of your life and functionality of the home. I’m not saying one shouldn’t have collections, but just consider wise rules of thumb when buying and keeping. Do I really have space for it, and is it worth keeping forever?
I used to love doing Christmas decorations until it became a storage problem. I now use only one closet that stores my favorite decor. I don’t buy anything new that can’t fit into that one closet. Period. Giving myself a limitation on owning things (no natter what it is) has reduced stress and made life easier. 🙂
We do re-read books. I have some favorites that I’ve read so many times I’ve lost count. I also have 4 kids, each 3 years apart who will cycle through. We love reading, all of us right down to the 2 year old who loves to look and listen. I love to collect books and have them on the shelf when I need them. While we use the library and love the “feel” of the library, I own MANY books that our large library system doesn’t have. I could possibly get them through inter-library loan, but there is always the issue of timing and late fees and that generally makes it too much trouble for our family. It’s easier and often cheaper to have the book on hand.
I, too, am somewhat of a neat freak and want things in their place. I have space for our books and shelves and I don’t think anyone could view our collection as a hoard or some unhealthy obsession. These are things we use daily and lend frequently.
If those who truly love and enjoy books and who have the means and space to utilize them don’t collect them, many will be lost as libraries purge their systems of old classics and treasures in favor of the latest twaddle that is more sought after. I live in an area with a large library system and when the library sells a like new copy of The Red Carpet for $1 and they don’t keep even one copy for their shelves and yet they have multiple copies of Captain Underpants or the Twilight series, it causes me pause. I’ll gladly take that $1 Red Carpet. Yes, I do have more books than anyone I know and plan to continue collecting as I can afford and have proper space to store them, but no, it isn’t an obsession and doesnt impede our lives in any way. Works for us and if you live near and need to borrow that out of print Oxford Ancient History or other hard to find treasure, well, I just might be the gal you’d want to visit.
Totally agree Christie, I am swimming in books, many of them collectors books that I have had for years. I too visit library sales and am going to one this morning. I reread many books, and I still occasionally will reread a children’s book. To me they are treasures and as you say the library system is purging itself of many wonderful classic old well written books to make room for rubbish…so I like to salvage what I can. Our library is tiny too, but I have picked up some really good old books from them, and I am happy to give them a home. I think books are the mainstay of this families life, we all love to read, and the only books I get sell on or give away are the ones I think could really bless someone else and who need them more than us. Books are one of lifes treasures and pleasures.
Yes, missceegee, I would agree about the library systems. We have a very large sharing library system that I’ve been able to get most of the books we need, but I’ve noticed some books that I’ve previously checked out have gone missing or are purged from the system. It is usually books with a Christian or conservative perspective. We live in an area that is very secular and I just wonder if some type of hidden censorship is going on? Even if that’s not the case, your example illustrates that classics are being replaced with twaddle.
We’ve always collected good books, but I’ve had the urge lately to continue building an even bigger home library. We probably have 2000 books, but I do keep them neat and organized and I do go through them occasionally and purge unwanted books. It would drive me crazy if I wasn’t able to find a book when I needed it, so I try to keep them maintained and easy to find.
For those of you that would like additional ideas for book space, I came across this AWESOME idea for neighborhood mini libaries. I think I might do this.
http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2011/12/portland_book_lovers_nurture_n.html
To me hoarding more like having something and never using it to the point of haveing no quality of life. If you are a slave to the books – as in they’re everywhere and you are walking on them, eating on them, ruining them without actually opening them, then you are probably hoarding them. =) There is a difference between someone hoarding the books versus someone storing them for the appropriate time. Storing involves care and thought. Hoarding doesn’t.
I agree with Christie and Linda, and yet I can see the point of ridding myself of the ones that I will never re-read or don’t need (like twaddle or other types). I will say that I have thousands of books, and in many ways, I consider them my friends. I love them, laugh with them, cry with them, learn from them, like the look, feel and smell of them, and re-read many often. I make it work by going up the walls with bookcases, adding books in baskets by the couch, under the fishtank, wherever I can make them fit and look nice. I build shelves all the time for our stuff, so I just find a spot and figure it out.
If I want to make sure that my children are into books like I am, then that means the books have to be accessible, readable, and used. By doing this I am limiting the space that computers, electronic games, movies and TV can take up in our lives – both mentally and physically. I literally would give up the entertainment center if it came to movies or books. =) Fortunately, my husband also sees the value of the books and understands my concerns of the taking over of twaddle in the library. lol
I think that we each have to do what we can to make our lives work, but I don’t want to live without my books or my computer! =)
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