A bit off subject buy maybe this can be of value to others as well. I'm working on my Civil War book collection. You know the one...it has spilled out on to the floor, isn't in very good order, you can't remember if you have a book but can't find it if you do. Yeah that one. For those of you with considerable libraries how do you shelve your books? Is it straight by author? Do you divide by subject? If so, how? How do you keep track of biographies? Are they by author or by the subject matter? If by subject how do you deal with authors with a large and varied body of work such as maybe Eric Wittenberg?
I have tried LibraryThing but have to admit that I just can't get motivated to enter everything. While that would help record keeping should something terrible happen it doesn't address the shelving issue.
Any ideas are appreciated before the shelves become completely out of control.
Good question. I group my theme, largely because I can not always remember who wrote a particular book. I have my several groupings: Robert E. Lee, ANV battles and campaigns, AofT battles and campaigns, North Carolina (which is subdivided into general, regimental, geographical, etc), civilian section, Florida, Alabama, Federal (also broken down), and then a section on general Confederate topics – chaplains, justice, staff, etc. My biographies are grouped by person. I plan is to regroup them via the person alphabetically. Not got to that yet. This may not work for some people, but having all my Lee books, or all my Gettysburg books together works well for me. Or course, I probably use my books a little different than some…
ReplyDeleteRobert, I do mine like this:
ReplyDeleteBattles and campaigns
Unit histories (including armies) Confederate and Union separate.
Diaries, letters, & Journals (C&U sep)
Memoirs (C&U Sep)
Biographies (C&U Sep)
Lincoln
Political Figures (C&S Sep)
Misc
Community histories
Photographs and Art
Soldier Experiences
Slavery
Outbreak of the Rebellion
War's Aftermath/Reconstruction
Command, Strategy and Tactics
Intelligence
Jounalism
Literature
Navy
Comprehensive
Reference
I may have forgotten one or two in there.
Mine are organized like this:
ReplyDeleteOR's
Confederate bios
Union bios
General reference
Eastern Theater campaigns/battles
Western Theater campaigns/battles
Confederate cavalry
Union cavalry
Other unit histories
Miscellaneous
Robert - what a great question and interesting comments already!Like most of the other fellows-whose collections I am sure are much bigger than mine,I also separate mine by subject:
ReplyDelete- Historical fiction (all periods but mostly Sharon Kay Penman)
- Civil War Medicine
- WWII
-all other conflicts
-battle narratives
-Lincolnia
-Misc
-ORs and special sets
- biography
-soldier life
Whoops -forgot I also have a shelf devoted to chaplains (all wars) and religious aspects of the Civil War
ReplyDeleteI solved the problem the lazy way. I keep all my ACW books in one 19th century American Craftsman Style bookcase. I'm now accumulating them digitally on the Kindle, which works better since Amazon "stocks" them for me as I finish them.
ReplyDelete