As I mentioned in my previous post, I undertook last week the lengthy task of reorganizing my books. I have quite a few books, and even lost a significant number during my move from Texas to Pennsylvania (lost on purpose, I guess sold is a better word).  Still, the mess that is my books was highly unorganized. Actually, the majority of things in my home are unorganized. Yes, I'm a soon-to-be librarian, love order, and systems, but somehow my clutter in my home is my organization. It is only because of my partner, Kirke, things seem to stay in the same spots. Even though I may put my glasses or water glass down in various spots throughout the day, I always know where it is, that is unless Kirke comes behind me and moves them (which he frequently does!)

But, I digress... And so comes the riveting end to my bookshelf organizational schema story!

So, I probably took a very un-librarian approach to organizing my books, I organized them by color. I know many people choose this schema but usually quickly abandon it or don't use their books alot so it doesn't matter. Well, I use my books frequently, and haven't abandon the organized chaos, though I am only a week in.

I decided to go the color route because I was just so bored with how the books were looking. My bookshelf is large and dominates a significant portion of my living room and is one of the first things guests see upon entering the room. I rent, therefore my walls are white and it seems all of my poster are in the bland white category as well. I wanted to bring some color to the room without poking additional thumbtacks in the walls (I guess that is my Mother's voice coming out!).

And besides, I practically know what every single book I have looks like, so the color schema didn't really make things harder to find!

The predicament problem was what to do with series and/or books by the same author that didn't really match each other. I am a big sucker for Penguin Classics so most of my books by multiple authors all have their recognizable black spine. But Penguin has begun making their Deluxe Classics and Cloth-bound Classics (yeah, I'd probably get a Penguin tattoo if my parents wouldn't disown me!) and they aren't all the same color spines. Also, boxed sets and multi-colored spines presented major obstacles that judement calls just had to be made on!

In the end, the shelves turned out nice, starting with white in the left-upper corner and ending with black in the right-bottom with ROYGBIV sandwich in the middle. End note: surprisingly, a large number of books spines are orange!

Rudie's favorite spot is with the green books. Look at those claws!

I bet cat hair and scratches is Library 101 bad for books!