The Shelving Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

I don't think a lot of people understand how time consuming or anal retentive some bookish nerds can be about shelving books and overall bookshelf organization. Personally, I shelve everything alphabetically by authors last name, but I know other people do it a lot of different ways. 

Today as I was shelving my books I decided to take a few pictures and outline the process, just as something fun! Enjoy!

Step 1: Get books. This step is arguably the most time consuming because you have to decide which books to get, how much you're willing to pay for them, wait for them to be shipped to you (or go out and buy them yourself) then bring them to your shelves back at home.

Step 1a: If you have purchased a lot of books do not panic! This large stack can easily be organized and accomplished (I was panicking because I had three boxes to go through here, but I managed).




Step 2: Decide how to organize the books onto the shelves. As you can see here, I organized them in what seems to be a random mess, but in actuality they are near similar letters in the alphabet before they go into specific letter piles.

Step 3: Organize into specific piles. Want green spines together? That'll be pile one. Want authors A, B, C and so forth to be separate? Those will all be their own piles like I did here. 

Step 4: Put the books on your shelves in whatever order you have decided upon. 

Step 5: Once you're done gaze upon your gorgeous shelves and proudly share your accomplishment to social media. You did it!

Here is the before and after pictures of my shelves:

Before                                                       After