Like many people, I designate the month of January as a time to get organized. I plan to do some drawer cleaning in my studio and some closet/shelf cleaning in my house.
One of the things that I am not happy with is my quilting book organization. I have made a good start but it needs some refinement.
Here is what I use now……
Years ago I purchased a program called “Book Collector“
It is a great program!!
I can enter the ISBN number of each book and all of the relevant information is loaded into the program.
So, I have a perfect listing of all of my books.
BUT….how do I find a certain book when I want it??
Right now I have them roughly divided into groups…..
- Scrap Quilt Books
- Technique Books
- Free Motion Quilting Books
- Surface Design Books
- Applique books
- etc….
…and that works pretty well, but I still spend an inordinate amount of time when I am looking for a SPECIFIC book.
I could shelve them by alphabet but then I couldn’t go to a section when I was just generally looking for a book.
Any thoughts that might help me???
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How about shelving them alphabetically within each subject/topic? That’s what libraries do.
I have thought about doing them all by alphabet but this idea might work. Just alphabetizing within each section is a great idea!!
Thanks.
I keep mine in pretty much the same sections as you do, but I don’t think I have as many. (I have two shelves of books but I also have textile, needlework, and fashion books, so not as many quilt books.) But in my quilt technique section, I arrange them by the steps of quilting — the piecing books first, then the quilting books, then the embellishing books. But all of those fit on one shelf. I know those skinny quilt books are hard to sort through! 🙂
From reading everybody’s suggestions, I am thinking that I need to go thru them and decide exactly what categories I want to use and then sort them that way. One nice thing about the program that I use, I can tag the books however I want and that could include the shelf #. Thanks for helping me think thru this!!!
Yes, organizing by topic is the most logical method. Now if I could just figure out how to organize all those loose patterns and integrate it with the patterns in the books…..