How do you organize old books (and booklets)?

I have SO many books plus booklets, some antique magazines and
newspapers, etc. How does one organize such things? On one hand,
I'd like to organize them logically, say, by author or subject.
On the other, items seem to be happier when organized by size....

Relatedly, especially if organizing by size, how do you locate the
items you need to find? I have recently gotten some queries from
researchers, and I have to ask "what is your time frame?" and look
toward moving and then organizing things, with attention paid to
the need to find them again.

Thanks,
--
Jean B.

Jean B. wrote:
I have SO many books plus booklets, some antique magazines and
newspapers, etc. How does one organize such things? On one hand, I'd
like to organize them logically, say, by author or subject. On the
other, items seem to be happier when organized by size....

Relatedly, especially if organizing by size, how do you locate the items
you need to find? I have recently gotten some queries from researchers,
and I have to ask "what is your time frame?" and look toward moving and
then organizing things, with attention paid to the need to find them again.

Thanks,


Everyone has a different method, I think. Mine is
distinctly not the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal
System.
My typical Divisions a

Language Reference (e.g. dictionaries)
Chess
Travel
Law
Philosophy (writings arranged chronologically)
Psychology (writings arranged chronologically)
Religion (writings arranged chronologically)
Science
Industrial Arts (woodworking, metalworking, automobiles)
Cooking
Art
- Painting (arranged chronologically by country)
- Photography
- Architecture
History
Arranged chronologically by subject matter (it can be a
pain in the neck but it makes access easy)
Literature
(each subdivision is arranged chronologically by date of
birth of author)
- American
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Russian
- Japanese
- Latin
- Italian
- Greek
- Canadian
- Irish
- Rest of the World
- Mystery
- Espionage
- SciFi

--
Francis A. Miniter

In dem Lande der Pygmäen
gibt es keine Uniformen,
weder Abzeichen, noch irgend welche Normen,
Und Soldaten sind dort nicht zu sehen.

Siegfried von Vegesack, "Es gibt keine Uniformen"
from In dem Lande der Pygmäen

Francis A. Miniter wrote:
Jean B. wrote:
I have SO many books plus booklets, some antique magazines and
newspapers, etc. How does one organize such things? On one hand, I'd
like to organize them logically, say, by author or subject. On the
other, items seem to be happier when organized by size....

Relatedly, especially if organizing by size, how do you locate the
items you need to find? I have recently gotten some queries from
researchers, and I have to ask "what is your time frame?" and look
toward moving and then organizing things, with attention paid to the
need to find them again.

Thanks,


Everyone has a different method, I think. Mine is distinctly not the
Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal System.
My typical Divisions a

Language Reference (e.g. dictionaries)
Chess
Travel
Law
Philosophy (writings arranged chronologically)
Psychology (writings arranged chronologically)
Religion (writings arranged chronologically)
Science
Industrial Arts (woodworking, metalworking, automobiles)
Cooking
Art
- Painting (arranged chronologically by country)
- Photography
- Architecture
History
Arranged chronologically by subject matter (it can be a pain in the
neck but it makes access easy)
Literature
(each subdivision is arranged chronologically by date of birth of author)
- American
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Russian
- Japanese
- Latin
- Italian
- Greek
- Canadian
- Irish
- Rest of the World
- Mystery
- Espionage
- SciFi

That's impressive! Thanks.

My main problem is with my old and antique US cookbooks and,
especially, my cooking booklets. The cookbooks are arranged as
follows:

Foreign Cookbooks
Region
Country
author for some; size for others--really big books have a space
unto themselves

US Cookbooks
More-recent US cookbooks:
Region, when applicable
Type of cookery, when applicable
classic cookbooks
[rest ????]
Older and Antique Books
Chronological [some multi-edition bks grouped regardless
of date]
Size

Cookbook Reference Volumes

Recipe Booklets [old and antique]... These are a BIG problem. I
started grouping them by company, but if grouped by size, they are
more stable. Grouping by size, however, makes things virtually
unfindable!

I might as well get into other books....

Literature
US
By author
Foreign
Region
Country
Author
US
Classics
Mysteries
Other
Author

Nonfiction
Gardening and related topics
Wildlife (mostly birds)
History
Region
Country
Chronological
Archaeology
Anthropology
Sociology
Language Reference
Genealogy [including some town histories]
Antiques
Architecture
Self-sufficiency [don't know what I want to call it]
Ancient and foreign art

Undoubtedly more I am forgetting, because some of these things are
currently double-shelved.

--
Jean B.

Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Oooops. I forgot the following (and probably more):

Food and cooking history
General
Region
Country
Chronological

Periodicals (newspapers, magazine, almanacs)
Title
Chronological

Biography
These are currently in their respective history sections.

--
Jean B.

Jean B. wrote:
Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Oooops. I forgot the following (and probably more):

Food and cooking history
General
Region
Country
Chronological

Periodicals (newspapers, magazine, almanacs)
Title
Chronological

Biography
These are currently in their respective history sections.



You remind me. About 10 years ago, a friend read a then new
book on the history of food and told me about interesting
excerpts from it. Just recently I was thinking I would like
to find the book. Would you know of any good histories of
food written about year 2000? Thank you.

--
Francis A. Miniter

In dem Lande der Pygmäen
gibt es keine Uniformen,
weder Abzeichen, noch irgend welche Normen,
Und Soldaten sind dort nicht zu sehen.

Siegfried von Vegesack, "Es gibt keine Uniformen"
from In dem Lande der Pygmäen

Jean B. wrote:
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
Jean B. wrote:
I have SO many books plus booklets, some antique magazines and
newspapers, etc. How does one organize such things? On one hand,
I'd like to organize them logically, say, by author or subject. On
the other, items seem to be happier when organized by size....

Relatedly, especially if organizing by size, how do you locate the
items you need to find? I have recently gotten some queries from
researchers, and I have to ask "what is your time frame?" and look
toward moving and then organizing things, with attention paid to the
need to find them again.

Thanks,


Everyone has a different method, I think. Mine is distinctly not the
Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal System.
My typical Divisions a

Language Reference (e.g. dictionaries)
Chess
Travel
Law
Philosophy (writings arranged chronologically)
Psychology (writings arranged chronologically)
Religion (writings arranged chronologically)
Science
Industrial Arts (woodworking, metalworking, automobiles)
Cooking
Art
- Painting (arranged chronologically by country)
- Photography
- Architecture
History
Arranged chronologically by subject matter (it can be a pain in
the neck but it makes access easy)
Literature
(each subdivision is arranged chronologically by date of birth of author)
- American
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Russian
- Japanese
- Latin
- Italian
- Greek
- Canadian
- Irish
- Rest of the World
- Mystery
- Espionage
- SciFi

That's impressive! Thanks.

My main problem is with my old and antique US cookbooks and, especially,
my cooking booklets. The cookbooks are arranged as follows:

Foreign Cookbooks
Region
Country
author for some; size for others--really big books have a space unto
themselves

US Cookbooks
More-recent US cookbooks:
Region, when applicable
Type of cookery, when applicable
classic cookbooks
[rest ????]
Older and Antique Books
Chronological [some multi-edition bks grouped regardless
of date]
Size

Cookbook Reference Volumes

Recipe Booklets [old and antique]... These are a BIG problem. I
started grouping them by company, but if grouped by size, they are more
stable. Grouping by size, however, makes things virtually unfindable!

I might as well get into other books....

Literature
US
By author
Foreign
Region
Country
Author
US
Classics
Mysteries
Other
Author

Nonfiction
Gardening and related topics
Wildlife (mostly birds)
History
Region
Country
Chronological
Archaeology
Anthropology
Sociology
Language Reference
Genealogy [including some town histories]
Antiques
Architecture
Self-sufficiency [don't know what I want to call it]
Ancient and foreign art

Undoubtedly more I am forgetting, because some of these things are
currently double-shelved.


That is quite a special collection on food and cooking!

For booklets, what I do is get magazine holders from Staples
or other office supply shops, label the outside
appropriately and group the booklets in the correct holder.

And for recipes cut out from newspapers or magazines, these
days a scanner allows you to create a computer directory
with the name of the recipes in alphabetical order. If you
have a database program (e.g., Access or Paradox), you can
then cross-reference on key ingredients to do random searches.

--
Francis A. Miniter

In dem Lande der Pygmäen
gibt es keine Uniformen,
weder Abzeichen, noch irgend welche Normen,
Und Soldaten sind dort nicht zu sehen.

Siegfried von Vegesack, "Es gibt keine Uniformen"
from In dem Lande der Pygmäen

Francis A. Miniter wrote:
Jean B. wrote:
Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Oooops. I forgot the following (and probably more):

Food and cooking history
General
Region
Country
Chronological

Periodicals (newspapers, magazine, almanacs)
Title
Chronological

Biography
These are currently in their respective history sections.



You remind me. About 10 years ago, a friend read a then new book on the
history of food and told me about interesting excerpts from it. Just
recently I was thinking I would like to find the book. Would you know
of any good histories of food written about year 2000? Thank you.

I misread this at first. I am not sure, but may be able to figure
it out. Not a reissue or new edition, I assume?

--
Jean B.

Francis A. Miniter wrote:
Jean B. wrote:
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
Jean B. wrote:
I have SO many books plus booklets, some antique magazines and
newspapers, etc. How does one organize such things? On one hand,
I'd like to organize them logically, say, by author or subject. On
the other, items seem to be happier when organized by size....

Relatedly, especially if organizing by size, how do you locate the
items you need to find? I have recently gotten some queries from
researchers, and I have to ask "what is your time frame?" and look
toward moving and then organizing things, with attention paid to the
need to find them again.

Thanks,


Everyone has a different method, I think. Mine is distinctly not the
Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal System.
My typical Divisions a

Language Reference (e.g. dictionaries)
Chess
Travel
Law
Philosophy (writings arranged chronologically)
Psychology (writings arranged chronologically)
Religion (writings arranged chronologically)
Science
Industrial Arts (woodworking, metalworking, automobiles)
Cooking
Art
- Painting (arranged chronologically by country)
- Photography
- Architecture
History
Arranged chronologically by subject matter (it can be a pain in
the neck but it makes access easy)
Literature
(each subdivision is arranged chronologically by date of birth of
author)
- American
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Russian
- Japanese
- Latin
- Italian
- Greek
- Canadian
- Irish
- Rest of the World
- Mystery
- Espionage
- SciFi

That's impressive! Thanks.

My main problem is with my old and antique US cookbooks and,
especially, my cooking booklets. The cookbooks are arranged as follows:

Foreign Cookbooks
Region
Country
author for some; size for others--really big books have a space unto
themselves

US Cookbooks
More-recent US cookbooks:
Region, when applicable
Type of cookery, when applicable
classic cookbooks
[rest ????]
Older and Antique Books
Chronological [some multi-edition bks grouped regardless
of date]
Size

Cookbook Reference Volumes

Recipe Booklets [old and antique]... These are a BIG problem. I
started grouping them by company, but if grouped by size, they are
more stable. Grouping by size, however, makes things virtually
unfindable!

I might as well get into other books....

Literature
US
By author
Foreign
Region
Country
Author
US
Classics
Mysteries
Other
Author

Nonfiction
Gardening and related topics
Wildlife (mostly birds)
History
Region
Country
Chronological
Archaeology
Anthropology
Sociology
Language Reference
Genealogy [including some town histories]
Antiques
Architecture
Self-sufficiency [don't know what I want to call it]
Ancient and foreign art

Undoubtedly more I am forgetting, because some of these things are
currently double-shelved.


That is quite a special collection on food and cooking!

For booklets, what I do is get magazine holders from Staples or other
office supply shops, label the outside appropriately and group the
booklets in the correct holder.

And for recipes cut out from newspapers or magazines, these days a
scanner allows you to create a computer directory with the name of the
recipes in alphabetical order. If you have a database program (e.g.,
Access or Paradox), you can then cross-reference on key ingredients to
do random searches.


Recipes are a whole other issue! I used to collect those like mad
but was so overrun by them that I have pretty much stopped doing that.

Thank you for the tip on the magazine boxes. Those would at least
stabilize the floppy material, assuming the boxes were full. I
would need to find acid-free material, because I am most concerned
with preserving the old material. In fact, that is one of several
motives that I have for collecting.

--
Jean B.

Francis and Jean,

You both might be interested in APPETITE CITY by William Grimes. It's
a history of restaurants in New York City from the Dutch beginnings
through the present day--how people were tempted out of their homes to
eat in restaurants, founding the multi-million dollar industry we know
today. There are no recipes, but there are reproductions of menus from
days gone by.

Jean B. wrote:
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
Jean B. wrote:
Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Oooops. I forgot the following (and probably more):

Food and cooking history
General
Region
Country
Chronological

Periodicals (newspapers, magazine, almanacs)
Title
Chronological

Biography
These are currently in their respective history sections.



You remind me. About 10 years ago, a friend read a then new book on
the history of food and told me about interesting excerpts from it.
Just recently I was thinking I would like to find the book. Would you
know of any good histories of food written about year 2000? Thank you.

I misread this at first. I am not sure, but may be able to figure it
out. Not a reissue or new edition, I assume?



I am not sure, but I do not think it was an older book.
Late 90s was my imagination.

It dealt with, e.g., where tomatoes originally developed and
how and when they were first transported to Europe.

--
Francis A. Miniter

In dem Lande der Pygmäen
gibt es keine Uniformen,
weder Abzeichen, noch irgend welche Normen,
Und Soldaten sind dort nicht zu sehen.

Siegfried von Vegesack, "Es gibt keine Uniformen"
from In dem Lande der Pygmäen