apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

thanks for posting my photo! i actually don't have a problem finding most books on these shelves, but had to alphabetize my black and white covered books (in another bookcase)--i have a terrible time finding titles in those. as a back up, i use delicious library software ( http://www.delicious-monster.com/ ) to catalog my collection, which allows me to see the book cover so i can easily locate it.

i LOVE the books arranged by color! i remember seeing an art installation where a group of artists rearranged all the books in a small book boutique by color. it was AMAZING! as far as the CD collection goes . . .that would absolutely drive me insane. i guess music comes before color on my priority list.

That top photo is beautiful and I can appreciate the design element of organizing by color - however, being an avid reader, I can't imagine how one would find anything. I would organize alpha or group by topic (which is exactly what I do). Pretty, pretty, but is there a way to do the color thing and still know where something is?

If so, I'd like to know. I like the look

Tony, are you referring to Chris Cobb's project at Adobe Bookshop? How I wish I could have seen it! (Click my name for a link.)

Please please please reassure me that the books weren't chosen by color, too ;-)

Jackie - how about a catalog listing of all the books by case, row, etc? For large collections such as the one pictured, it would be an organized way to go. And you'll be able to keep track on who borrows what.

ttt: I have perhaps 1/2 that amount. Your suggestion is a good one. I'm looking for rubber kitchen stuff on another thread. Priorities :) But the catalog thing is excellent.

All these ideas! Hmmm...maybe I could also cover each group in a different color.....now this is why I love AT.

Thanks.

Never thought of books, but t-shirts absoloutely by color. CD's must be alphabetical by artist at all times.

I have a photographic memory and just need to visualise the book to go to the colour but if you have lots of books it can't be easy to find them. Looks nice though.

Emily - I saw that "installation" done at Adobe books in SF. Its was hella cool - a big ole independent bookstore completely organized by book cover color.

In EX LIBRIS, Anne Fadiman's wonderful meditation about books and bibliophiles, she devotes some pages to the question of organizing one's personal library, including an anecdote about an interior decorator who arranged his books by color and then died in a terrible accident one week later.

can you say......"OCD"???

Underneath the dust jackets, most of my books are barfy colors like beige or brown.

Ooooh. I never would have thought of that... My anal retentive husband has our books in order by topic and then by size. Oy. He also organizes our DVDs alphabetically, the only thing odd about that is that he starts the alphabet at the bottom left hand corner and goes up. He claims that its easier to adjust everything when you get a new dvd. I still don't quite get it, but whatever.

Colour? Are you British or Canadian? We spell it color.

I spell it colour. Always have, always will. It makes me cooler.

i have to say that when you have a small space, or a space where you can't hide everything to get that coveted minimalist look, organizing your books by color creates a little calm in a sea of chaos. ok, so my place isn't a sea of chaos! but it keeps things a little more tidy looking!

i convinced my mom to let me do hers, too, and she marvelled at my response to her question of "however will i find my books?". i replied "you'll have to look through your books a bit." after 55 years of collecting books, she loves the idea of actually looking through them and perhaps finding one you have forgotten about, or just getting to know your books better!

perhaps if you have so many books that you couldn't possibly look through them to find one, then you have too many books....perhaps

and my mother is a professor and a minister---she has quite a collection (for those who think that they might need more books than her for some reason)

Even if you are a visual person and can find your books by recalling the colors of their covers, other people trying to browse your library may have a tougher time of it. I do like the catalog idea as a way of mitigating that.

My books are organized by category, but I'm going to try covering them with glassine book covers to make them stand out less on the bookshelf, while still allowing the titles to be read.

I actually think that it's somewhat disrespectful to your books to arrange them by color. In some sense, it's saying that the books' worth does not come from the subject matter or the author of the material, etc., but rather what color the binding was printed in. Certainly, with some design books, this is a very important factor and so arranging by color is in some sense honoring the book. But I have an extensive collection of books on American history, mathematics, and political philosophy. I think I would be in some sense desecrating by arranging by color instead of by subject matter. It certainly looks nice arranging by color, but the books need to be honored in a way that goes beyond how your perception of the cover.

"but the books need to be honored in a way that goes beyond how your perception of the cover."

should read:

"but the books need to be honored in a way that goes beyond your perception of the cover."

I need remedial grammar lessons... And what's with me using "in some sense" all the time. gaaah.

i started to type "that's silly". but upon further inspection of why i disagree with you, yevgeny, it is because i consider arranging the books by color to be honoring them in a visual way. i don't have a need to ensure that my very serious and important book "the stages of faith" doesn't end up next to "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy". to me, each of these books holds an important place in my library--they each serve to grant me a bit of something, be it education, respite or humor, and therefore are comrades on the shelf. they are all honored if they're in my collection, and if there were one that wasn't as important to me as the next (at least in some way) then i would question why i am holding on to it at all.

I did this to the bookshelves in my living room and I love it. The books were totally disorganized before and now they make me smile to see them. It didn't take all that long to do either.

If I walked into someone's apt and saw books arranged that way, I would question his sanity. What's more, there's little that says "I don't really care what's IN these books, and I don't ever read them" like arranging them by color. Two strikes!

I have mine more-or-less that way, because I'm kind of a tyrant in my apartment about the idea of pretty. There's plenty of places in the world where unsightliness must be tolerated, but not in MY home.

And I kind of love books, but to tell you the truth, I really don't read novels very much. I think the fact that we always moved when I was growing up (all within Louisiana) and I've tended to move every few years in my adult life, too (all within New York City), something as heavy as books have tended to not really be something I've managed to collect very much of.

ok, I did that once with my roommates extensive video/dvd collection and she laughed at me.

I don't see how arrangement by colour discounts the content of the book. If the cover wasn't important, authors and publishers wouldn't invest any effort in the cover.

I only tend to keep books that are meaningful to me in some way, and pass on most books so others can enjoy them, too. The fact that books are even ON my bookshelves means I'm respectful enough of them, so I don't see a reason to judge how I might arrange them on the shelf.

I wonder if any of you have had this happen to you: you remember a books cover (including color) but not the name. Unfortunately it happens to me all the time. Another sad occurance: you remember scenes, and snapshots from a book (that obviously you had created in your mind while you were reading it) and not the storyline. That happens to me quite often too. So for me it makes incredible sense to store books by color. So it is not disrespect but just how different brains work...

Try as I might, I can't do it. I guess I trust my visual memory less than my verbal one. But in the end, I kind of think all the colors together don't look good. They're too rainbow-y, candy store-ish for my taste.

For cataloguing books, I suggest LibraryThing. You could tag books with their colour to make it even easier.

I currently have my books arranged this way on a big ole Ikea Expedit bookcase. My sister made fun of me but I like it. It pleases my eye. I'm like rappa, I only keep books I care about, so it's not like there's a trillion to go through if I'm looking for something. I have a picture but it's on my work computer. Maybe I'll throw it up here tomorrow.

I arrange books by emotion, i.e., how I feel about them. Books I really like are in the living room. Books I like less are in another room, books I like least and will probably get rid of are in the hallway (on a crappy college-era bookcase; how's that for my subconscious asserting itself). I do like the idea of cataloguing them all, as that makes my internal librarian feel all groovy.

I guess its nice to live as students with the collection spanning only 3 shelves! All books are easy to find! ;)

I tried doing that on the 3 shelves, by the way. It looks great, but there is not enough continuity to "get" visually what is happening.

i did that with my books about three years ago. and i had just thought it was a sign of me being extremely bored or extremely crazy.

I did this a few weeks ago and so far I like it. The effect is diminished somewhat because my two shelves flank my couch, but I got around it somewhat by having a white shelf and a black shelf in addition to the colour (am Canadian) wheel look which broke things up in a clear enough way.
I'm not sure how long I'll keep it like this but it did get me reacquainted with my books and I did some culling, which can't hurt; it made space for me to put things other than books on the shelves. In the meantime I have a disproportionate number of green spines. Hm.

I did this a few weeks ago and so far I like it. The effect is diminished somewhat because my two bookcases flank my couch, but I got around it somewhat by having a white shelf and a black shelf in addition to the colour (am Canadian) wheel look which broke things up in a clear enough way.
I'm not sure how long I'll keep it like this but it did get me reacquainted with my books and I did some culling, which can't hurt; it made space for me to put things other than books on the shelves. In the meantime I have a disproportionate number of green spines. Hm.

Gah, double post. Sorry.

I'm right with Rappy & Tequila Red. All of the books I have are meaningful to me, I don't just buy books to have books. I read A LOT, and being the artsy visual sort I always remember what the cover looks like before anything else, thus it makes perfect sense to me to organize my books this way. It calms me to see them this way. I too, have them arranged by color in my wonderful Ikea Expedit =)-on a side note, I LOVE those booksheves! Just got another, which is alas still sitting in its boxes on my floor.....