Shelvage!

[desperance]

...So I went to the Lit & Phil, as heretofore mentioned; and it's full of little flyers and big notices saying that it'll be closed on April 30th. Closed! Panic! Why?

I asked the librarian, whom we adore. Kay says they're getting new wooden shelving fitted, to replace all the extra metal units they've had to squeeze in as the collection has expanded. So - being as I am, ever on the qui vive - I ask what they're doing with the old metal shelving.

Kay says they were just going to dump it, and why, would I like some?

So I have measured up there, and come home and measured up here; and of course none of their units will properly fit any of my niches, but I didn't expect that, this house is way too irregular; but with interesting and novel rearrangements, and much discarding of old and badly-put-together improvised shelving, I can find room for lots of new shelves. Which will make my books very happy, and me too: I do like the idea of being reshelved by a library.

I may have to have shelving parties.That'll be fun for everyone.

Comments

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. Shelving parties. I once reorganized a friend's book collection for fun. (My own books are a complete mess- perhaps I should do something about that?) Too bad I am a bit far away...

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

At an apartment we had some years ago, we put up some 140+ linear feet of shelving, because, well. Books. Obviously. And when we were moving out, all the people who came to look at the place said to the landlord, nervously, "They *are* going to take all that shelving down, aren't they?"

What kind of people, I ask you, do not want to move into a house with 140 linear feet of shelving?! It's *terrible*!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

What kind of people, I ask you, do not want to move into a house with 140 linear feet of shelving?! It's *terrible*!

It's unthinkable. But, um, you just stirred me into movement; I have drifted around this room, the landing outside and the bedroom beyond. With a tape-measure in my hands. Approx 102 feet of shelving being used solely for books, on this floor alone. The majority of the collection is downstairs. I'm scared now. (And, very roughly, the library shelving available = 17x24 = 408 feet of shelving. Even I may not need that much. Besides not having the wallspace to accommodate it; this is only a small house. Sob...)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I think we got rid of something on the order of 1500-2000 books to make ours fit on the shelves we had. That was pretty traumatizing. Over the course of three or five years we got rid of about three thousand books, we think. Some of them weren't so painful, because they were duplicates, but we spent a long long time slowly culling series and books that we reluctantly admitted to ourselves we were never going to read again, this making owning them not entirely necessary, and (more importantly) making *moving* them wholly unnecessary and to be avoided if at all possible.

[affreca.livejournal.com]

I would help out with shelving, if it didn't involve a plane flight. I enjoy putting books in order (once, which is why all my read books are sitting around waiting to go home).

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

1. When the Lit & Phil opened, I believe they shelved their books by size.
2. You did not mention that several of your shelves are stacked two-deep with books
3. shewhomust and I were motivated to move to our present house in 1975 because the old one was running out of bookshelf space.
4. I now estimate that if we were to shelve all of our books, many of which are in piles about the house, we would need 100 metres of bookshelf.