Arranging Books by Color
Rob writes, over at Design Observer:
I have never found the Dewey Decimal Classification system to be an accurate reflection of how books are organized in my own mind — or anybody else’s for that matter. Certainly I understand the DDC’s advantages when when it comes to large-scale collections, but if how we choose to organize our personal effects says something about who we are, then an arbitrary numeric system says very little about me.
[…]
Recently, I stopped by a design studio in my building called Thumb to see my friend Luke Bulman. He’d just reorganized his books by color, and I asked him why he did it. A few reasons that resonated with me, and helped to illuminate his logic.
Read the rest — an interesting post indeed.
Here in my office and library, books are organized according to subject, but not with any recognizable system. Type books are together, books about book design are together, then books about types of art, etc. It is, as Rob suggests, organized according to the way that works best for the user — me.
How are your books arranged?
Those of you with good memories will remember one subject of Rob’s post being mentioned here on Foreword back in 2004.
TrackBacks: 0
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 30, 2006, at 9:45 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Books | Books, design, art | Libraries | Whatever
Comments:
I can relate this to how I organize music albums — which is: according to the place and time in my life I listened to them. Comets on Fire, Six Organs of Admittance and John Coltrane are shelved next to each other because they were all the music I listened to when I was in Winnipeg in 2005. It doesn’t make much sense to other people, but it does to me.