Friday, May 13, 2011

Friday Frivolity: The Self Arranging Bookshelf

I was thumbing through Sunset Magazine the other day during my break at work when I saw something that caused me to squawk in dismay. It was an artsy home decorating article featuring clever storage ideas. I love that sort of thing -- especially when it involves bookshelves. But what raised my ire was the author's suggestion that the client arrange his books by color. How could you find anything with that sort of system? I may not have a degree in library science, but I must have a librarian's soul as evidenced by the fact that in our home library the fiction is arranged by author and title and the nonfiction is arranged by subject. (I have not, however, gone to the lengths of marking their spines with Dewey decimal numbers.)


Nevertheless, I did enjoy this whimsical video featuring a self-arranging bookshelf in which the books sort themselves by color.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eeeeuuuugh!

the booklady said...

Cute! ☺

Alanna Kellogg said...

Very clever!!

I actually WANTED to be a librarian when I was a kid (even built my own in my head ...). But I arrange by theme, not author. So American contemporary, British authors, Canadian authors, Native American, etc. Works for me - drives everyone else crazy! :-)

JP said...

Arranging books by colour! My youngest daughter used to arrange her bureau drawer content (ie clothing) by colour.

Made me chuckle.

Right now, my shelves are barely arranged at all. Well, the reading is mostly Catholic stuff, so it takes up most of the space, lol.

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

JP,

Well, as long as you can find particular books when you want them, I guess you have a functional system.

We lived in our previous house for twelve years during which I developed a very precise mental image of where all of our books were shelved. Since moving four years ago, I often find that when I go to look for a book what pops into my head is where it used to be in my previous house.

--C.B.