3 Keys Thursday: Keeping My Book Collection in Order

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

After I write one of these posts, I often feel motivated to attack a hot spot. Today, I plan to dig into the bookshelf in my living room to find beach reads and to sort through the books that have collected there. Some will make the cut. Others will be donated to my local library.

Books are my weakness -- a fact that I'm sure is unsurprising since I am, after all, a writer and an educator. Maybe your weakness is something else -- or many other somethings, if your personal style is I love stuff. Our collections can enrich our lives, but they can also overwhelm our space if we let them. Today's three keys focus on three things I use to keep my book collection on the right side of the line between enriching and overwhelming.

Control the influx. Fortunately (and unfortunately), I collect something that's readily available so, for me, the first step is determining whether or not the book in question is one I need to purchase. Social media and online issues have done a pretty thorough job of obliterating my need for magazine subscriptions -- I can find links to much of what I want to read online, without committing to a year's worth of issues that I need to find a place for in my home. And, for the magazines I want to be able to page through, I can treat myself to the occasional issue. When it comes to books, the first question is, do I need to buy it, or can I simply check it out of the library? How much time I have to read and whether or not I plan to reference the book when I'm finished reading it are the two key factors in making this decision.

Go electronic. When it comes to books and magazines, paperbacks and hardcovers take up more room than e-books and audio books, so before I make a purchase, I need to decide on the format I prefer. In most cases, I opt for the physical book, but I've also been playing with audiobooks (so I can "read" while I drive) and re-discovering my Kindle. Price is a factor, but so are things like where and how I plan to read the book. If it's a beach book, I usually go with the e-book. This is also true if I anticipate reading it in small snippets of time, as I often do with non-fiction; that way I can tuck the Kindle in my purse and read it in waiting rooms and at times when I find myself with a small window of unexpected free time.

Sort regularly. Tastes change. The book I picked up from the clearance table way back when and never got around to reading might not look so interesting now. As with any other sorting task, you can go with a scheduled time or a time that arises naturally. Every December, we need to move the bookcase in our mudroom to make room for the Christmas tree, which means the books on the shelves get sorted at least once -- when we move the furniture out of the way or when we move it back -- which helps to keep my collection from overrunning the space allotted for it. I also raid my bookshelves for reading material when we're beach-bound or gearing up for a long trip, and usually find a few books that don't make the cut that way as well.

Despite my best efforts, I typically end up with more books than my shelves will hold. While that's not a terrible problem to have, I still need to make sure to do all of the above so my collection doesn't expand beyond the spaces I've allotted for it.

How about you? What do you collect? How do you make sure your collections are a thing of beauty and not one more thing to keep after?