Mysterical-E

Reading for Smarties

YOUR HOME LIBRARY: CARE & STORAGE

“The great objection to new books is that they prevent our reading old ones.” - Joseph Joubert

Once we accumulate a certain amount of books, our thoughts turn to caring for and storing them. Below I’ve put together information that should help with that process.

STORAGE:

Whether you have lots of old, read books, lots of old unread books, new books you’ve never read, or a combination of all three, you can form a system to store them, hoping to read them all someday and re-read the ones you want to.

If you’re reading this column, you most likely have stacks and stacks of books throughout your home. Maybe you already have them perfectly organized and catalogued. If not, I’ve gathered together some random ideas about how to store and care for them all. Your home library is an expression of your personality and interests. Fixing up a place for your books should be fun and satisfying.

If any of your books are in boxes, let them out. Set them free! If the boxes are stacked against a wall, certainly the wall can hold up some bookshelves instead.

Here are some perhaps unthought-of or unusual places for bookshelves:

•    Over and around doorways.
•    Up a staircase.
•    Underneath windowsills.
•    Paperbacks might fit in DVD storage areas in entertainment centers or even shelving made for DVDs.
•    Between wall studs--remove the drywall, finish the back of the wall unless it’s already okay, and add plain shelves by attaching them to the studs. (Not recommended for outside walls, though.)

When placing your bookshelves and other storage options, remember these tips for keeping your books in good shape:

•    Store them away from heat and moisture. Attics and basements can have either or both of these problems. Be sure, if you use your attic, that it doesn’t get too hot and humid. And think twice about the basement if there’s even a slight chance of flooding. Remember, if your water heater is down there, there’s always a chance of flooding. Even if you think there isn’t, you’ll probably need a dehumidifier to keep it dry enough. Humidity can cause mold and attract insects.

•    If stored against an outside wall, be sure there is a space between the bookcase and the wall for air circulation to avoid dampness and pest infestation.

•    Store books away from direct sunlight because it will fade leather and cloth, especially on the spine, and if books are left open on a stand, the pages will discolor as well (this will happen eventually without direct sunlight if the book is left open too long on the same pages).

•    Don’t cramp them by cramming them in, either vertically or horizontally.

•    Dust spines and tops of books often, and pull them out of their shelves at least twice a year for a complete dusting and to inspect them for damage from insects or mold.

As your bookshelves creep up the wall, you may need a library ladder to reach them. Even though any step stool or ladder will do, rolling library ladders are an interesting addition to a room. The ladder is attached to shelving by a metal tracking rod with wheels on the bottom so you can move it from one end of the library to the other, even around a set of corner bookshelves. Go here to see this kind of unique ladder:

http://www.putnamrollingladder.com/

Also available is a step stool which turns into a chair (no installation necessary). Go here to see a step stool:

http://www.amazon.com/CONVERTIBLE-WOODEN-CHAIR-SPACE-SAVING/dp/B004MRV2U4/ref=pd_cp_hi_2

Just for fun, a combination chair, ottoman and bookshelves:

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/it-slices-it-dices-bibliochaise-who-needs-a-bookshelf.html

Library book stands are also helpful for reading those big volumes that are too heavy to hold up comfortably, or to switch to reading standing up when you’ve been sitting too long. Here’s a nice one:

http://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES/PRODUCT/Product.asp?Params=Category=17-148|Level=2-3|pageid=1656

Don’t forget a comfortable reading chair or couch, and a table to put your glasses, if needed, and something to drink, pen and notebook or reading journal, and a nice reading lamp.

Speaking of lamps, be sure you have good ones--full spectrum are best. And no shadows!

SORTING

First consider dividing up the paperbacks and hardbacks. I’ve seen this suggested, but it’s not a hard and fast rule. I do it for fiction but not for non-fiction. But decide before you go any further which way you prefer.

Next, if you have a huge library and are familiar with professional ways of cataloging books, using the Dewey Decimal Classification System or Library of Congress Classification System might work for you. As you probably know, the Dewey System has ten broad categories such as Religion, History and Geography, Philosophy and Psychology and so on. Each one of the ten basic categories has a block of numbers in the hundreds. You use the catalog to find the number, then go to the section to find the book itself. Big libraries often use the Library of Congress Classification System. It has twenty-one more specific categories.

But there are other ways to sort out a home library:

•    By Category, just as the professionals do, but make up your own categories and place them where they fit best or are handiest for you to find. For example, reference books should be within easy reach, but books you rarely read could be up high or down low with the other categories you look at the most in the middle shelves. You can even label the shelves if you like with moveable labels that won’t ruin your shelves: http://www.highsmith.com/search/shelf labels/&mkwid=sAmURtU0J&pcrid=6945945859&gclid=CKOVweaK_awCFaReTAodvEXRSA?Page=9998&Sort=

•    Alphabetically: You can do it either by the author’s last name or by the first word in the title. In today’s world where we often see lists of people by their first names, I suppose you could do it that way, as well.

•    Chronologically: If you’re just starting a home library or can remember when you read what, you could sort your books by the order you read them in. It’s a neat way to show the progression of your reading interests especially if you can start with books read in childhood.

•    By Color: Don’t cringe. Some people like the idea, and it is a contemporary way to use color in your home. Only recommended, though, if you can remember the color of each book in your library if you plan to read them ever again.

•    By Read and Unread: On the shelves, you might further break down your order by placing books you’ve already read to the left or upper shelf of each section, and unread ones to the right on the lowest shelf for that category.

•    Glass cases are a good investment if you have enough antique books to preserve. They can be separated from the other shelving if you like, or integrated. They can have locks so no one can handle them unless you agree (like visiting children or clueless relatives/friends).

•    Books are usually displayed side-by-side, but you might want to lay some horizontally, stacking several together. This is recommended for a small stack of books about one subject or for smaller-than-usual books. It is especially a good idea for very large books because pages can pull away from the spine if these are stored vertically. But don’t stack such books more than a few books high (three is the most recommended for very large books) to avoid stress on those at the bottom. The stack can also double as a bookend.

•    To add interest to your collection use some of your favorite knick-knacks where space allows.

Cataloguing Your Library

It can be fun to make up a catalog for your library. You can design cards to put in each book with the title, author, when you started to read it, when you finished, who borrowed it, favorite quotes and other comments and even your own rating system of stars or whatever. Or you can put the cards in an index card box or even a photo album. At least keep an index box with cards for books borrowed. At the same time you make up your cards, you might want to use one of the on-line sites such as Goodreads, Library Thing or Shelfari to store a list of all your books. With this type of program, you can share what you’ve read with friends and keep a record stored away from your home of what books you own. This can help you file an insurance claim in case of a disaster.

But if disaster strikes, all your books are destroyed, and you don’t know exactly what you really had and its worth, here is how to figure out what the insurance company will think they were worth:

Use a tape measure to measure how many feet your books took up. Estimate the
percentages of hardbacks and paperbacks in that measurement.

An average hardback is 1.75" wide and costs $25.00. An average paperback is 1" wide and costs $7.00.

Insurance companies only tend to consider replacement value, not sentimental value and will probably not give you anything extra for signed editions unless they have extra value you can prove.

So, each foot of hardback books would cost approximately $170 to replace (12" of shelving divided by 1.75" per book = 6.8 books per foot of shelving at $25 a book).

And each foot of paperback books would cost about $84 to replace (12" of shelving divided by 1" per book = 12 books per foot of shelving at $7 a book).

CARING FOR:

Once your books are stored and catalogued, here are some tips for their care.

Look out for pests that can destroy you books:

•    Silverfish like to chew on glue and paper. They hide in dark corners and come out at night.
•    Cockroaches eat paper and book bindings, leaving a brown liquid trail on the pages as they chow down.
•    Book lice eat book paste, glue and fungus and love dark, dusty spots.
•    Termites will eat your nice wooden bookshelves and to add insult to injury, the paper in your books, too.
•    Bookworms can tunnel through a book, eat the pages and lay eggs in it so more can be born to continue the destruction.
•    Mice and rats also love to eat books and chew on the shelves.

More Hints on Caring for your books:

•    Light fades inks and dyes. If you leave a book open and exposed to strong light of any kind, it will probably show signs of damage in just a few days.
•    Do not grab a book from shelves by pulling on the top of the vulnerable spine area. Instead, reach over the top of the book to the front edge and tilt it back until enough for the front part sticks out and gives you a handhold. Then, gently move the adjacent books apart and lift, don’t slide, the book upwards take it off the shelf. If you just grab a book from the shelf, covers can drag against neighboring volumes and damage three books in the process.
•    When you open a book, do it slowly and carefully, especially when it’s new. By forcibly flattening the book to make it lie flat, you will damage it. This is why many libraries do not allow you to photocopy. Paperbacks are particularly vulnerable and the binding glue can snap.
•    Don’t lick or in any way dampen your fingers to turn a page. This can promote mold and distorts the paper.
•    If you must store books long-term in boxes, lay them flat and alternate the spines. Do not stack cardboard boxes too high. Remember to store in a climate-controlled environment. Periodically check for insects in the area where the books are stored.
•    Don’t use paper clips, rubber bands as bookmarks, marking pens and other foreign objects if you want your book to remain in good condition. (Marginalia is a different animal, though--see my article about that in a previous issue of Mysterical-e.)
•    Don’t fold down page corners (dog-ear) because it will immediately damage that page and can often cause the page corner to break off entirely. There are beautiful bookmarks available--but the thinner, the better if you’re going to be reading the book over a long period of time. And be sure to remove the bookmark when you re-shelve the book.

Once you’ve set up your own home library, you will be assured that your books will remain in good condition and that you can find almost any volume easily. What a great feeling!

“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.” - Thomas Jefferson

Currently reading: “Treasury of Humorous Stories” from Gallery Books. Not nearly as good as I expected--I rarely laugh or even smile while reading. Not recommended.