Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Organising library books

We are BIG readers in this house. I bribe the librarians with donated books so they let me take more than the standard 6 at a time. Now you know there's nothing I won't do for books.

I've shared before how I am weak when faced with book sales but for the most part, I buy non-fiction and get fiction from the library.

This little table is next to my main desk in the study.


My stuff is on the left and Dion's is on the right.

  1. When I get home from the library, I unpack the orange bag and stack all the books on the top.
  2. As I finish reading, the books go back in the orange bag. The idea is that by the time the books are due back, all of them are back in the orange bag, ready to go.
  3. Of course that never happens but at least I know immediately which ones I have to renew and which can be returned.
  4. This system works beautifully for me!

As for Dion's pile, I have no idea what his system is :) Incidentally, we bought his bookbag (folded under that blue book) at a bookstore called Collins at the Sydney airport for AUS $2.

Do you take books from the library? What do you do to organise your books?

4 comments:

Abbi said...

We love the Library too! We went this morning in fact. Thankfully we are not limited in the number we get as we like to get a lot! We have a special place to keep ours as well so that they don't get lost. Ours isn't quite as organized as yours though.

Melonie said...

I make good use of the library too. :-) Not so much here but at our old post we went every Tuesday, rain or shine. Chatty and I both have canvas bags. We use a system similar to yours: books are removed when we get home and go back into the bag as they are read. Only diff is I hang the bags on the doorknobs of the applicable bedrooms (until/unless they get too heavy, then they go on the floor behind the door LOL). Our libraries don't have limits so Chatty's limit is to only check out what she's willing and able to carry. I've found that's 5-6 books so far. I admit to having brazenly cheated on my bag, because I can put it in the bottom of Winky's stroller. heh heh. But hey, I still have to push it around and carry it into the house, right?

Edi said...

we've had different organization systems at different times.

We go to the library 2-3 times per week and at times between my dh, 2 kids and myself can have close to 50 or more books at a time.

Our current system is: children's book in a nice basket in the living room. When that is too full - need to start returning some books.

Books for dh and I - not as well organized. If they are unread books we are still interested in - they are probably on my desk shelf (mine) and on a specific book shelf in our office (dh). Then the books that are to be returned are on a sep. shelf marked "return". Also we keep a sep shelf for library dvds and cds.

Even with all that - there is still books here there and everywhere.

I have a great hard plastic, large, double handled picnic type basket (no lid) that I cart books to and from the library with. Better than a bag b/c all sized books can fit in it and it carries a lot of books and has never broken on me...yet!

Megan Spears said...

Oh man, I don't know what I would do if they limited me on the number of books.. I would have to cry. We usually walk out with at least 15+ books (and we get to keep them for three weeks).

I have to say that the only way I manage to keep track of them is by keeping the receipt list on my bulletin board in the kitchen. The kids (most of the time) have them everywhere... in the car, on the sofa or in their rooms. We can't get enough of the books we get from the library.

Great ideas Marcia...

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