As we’ve mentioned before, the Wifey and I read by osmosis. Oh, we do read the traditional way, but owning is that first step to actually acquiring the knowledge bound within the pages on our shelves. Organized? Of course not. Here’s how we started: Wifey’s books on one set of shelves, mine on another. Then a couple bookshelves were added, and books were taken out of storage. Then we bought more books. Then we added shelves. Then we rearranged the rooms. Then we added shelves…et cetera, and so forth, and etcetera forth. There IS a rough organization, where general subjects — feminism, sci-fi, business, graphic design — are clumped together, but I couldn’t tell you what we’ve got or where it’s at.

In fact, we recently attended a book sale, a time when knowing what’s already on our shelves would be an asset. See, as frugal shoppers we went on the last day, during the last advertised hour or so. The big local used-book-sellers were lined around the edge, waiting for the quiet signal: after 2:30, the per-book-sale became a bag-sale. The resellers were waiting like vultures for the final gasp of breath, waiting for the last of the readers to pass by the books that final time, so they could swoop in and take the rest away at pennies a copy. Of course, everybody gets grabby pretty quick — so, if we knew what we’d already owned, we wouldn’t have wasted time on yet another copy of Dick Gregory’s From The Back Of The Bus or a James Blish’s Star Trek adaptation that’s not one of the ones I’m missing. Sure, when it works out to two cents a book, it’s not a horrible loss — but where in the world will we put them?

Last year, someone with a similar problem turned to the geek world for help: he asked Slashdot how to best organize and sort his and his wife’s personal library. Once you get past the snark and humor (telling which is which is tough), there’s quite a few good suggestions. The amateur librarian took the best solutions he was given, and applied it to his library. His rules for the home library are as follows:

1. It needs to be easy to find a book.
2. It needs to be easy to add a book to the system.
3. The systems needs to handle foreign language books.
4. It needs to be easy to maintain the system going forward.
5. The initial cataloging effort can’t take forever.

Ah, if only I could have such high goals! While I’m not Collectors’ Quest’s resident library-expert, it seems that taking cues from modern libraries is the key: use barcodes, organize by tried-and-true structures (the guy above used the Library of Congress’ method), and stick with whatever you decide to do. It sounds like the library-questing guy and his wife are primarily non-fiction-readers, which lends well to the LOC method of organization; Dewey Decimal might be best for fiction lovers, or maybe take notes on how Barnes & Noble does their shelving. If you’re a collector of old books, you may be out of luck when it comes to using ISBNs and barcodes to speed along your cataloging. Using software to catalog the books, of course, only matters if you can shelve them in a findable way — invest in good shelves, lest you start stacking and double-rowing your books like we have. Still, the 5 Rules do not rely on ISBNs, Libraries of Congresses, computers, or zebra stripes — it’s a matter of willpower.

Ah, willpower. How much smaller would our collection of books be if we had some willpower? There’s a Catch-22 in that — if we had the willpower to organize, we’d have the willpower to resist buying so many books and have less of a critical need for library organization. Whether or not we own a copy of Catch 22, I couldn’t tell you. Wifey thinks we own somewhere between zero and ten copies, which is a reasonable estimate; one of these days we’ll narrow it down a bit, when we get to cataloging our library.

I’ve made no secret that I’m a longtime library employee. Aside from the embarrassingly small paycheck and the creeps who take over the computer banks to look for barely-dressed MySpace girls to send pictures of their nether-regions to, one other element that keeps me in the library’s employ is the fact that it’s a great place to score collectibles. One wouldn’t naturally associate the stern, protective atmosphere of a library’s own collection with building one’s own collection, but the opportunities are plentiful.

Our library system recently bought into a service called Price It!, which is a searchable database of higher-priced collectibles and antiques - generally the kind of price-checking that isn’t easily accomplished by searching completed auctions on eBay. Price It! incorporates data from non-internet auction houses in addition to GoAntiques.com, as well as eBay searches. While the database sometimes seems either way too nebulous or way too specific, playing around with the search box can yield some interesting results. If you have anything unusual in the attic, or that you grabbed on a whim at a tag sale, try giving it a search and see what you can come up with - but only if your local library has incorporated this service into what they offer the public! Check out their website or give them a call and they should guide you in the right direction. Of course, this is only in addition to the shelves and shelves of Kovel’s guides and other pricing directories. Start around the 740s in the Dewey decimal system.

Not only does the library offer information about collectibles, it’s very likely that it will be brimming with collectibles for sale during their periodical book sales, or in a section devoted to sales year-round. See, libraries get tons and tons of donations. We get these donations out of generosity and affection for what a library represents, we get donations because people want tax write-offs on junk they don’t want anymore, and we get donations because it’s cheaper to leave stuff on the library’s doorstep than to rent a dumpster when your great Aunt Bertha dies. Most of the time, the people donating these books don’t really sort them, preferring to be rid of them with minimal effort. A lot of places that accept donations of good require paperwork - we have a simple no-questions-asked policy.

During my tenure at the library, I’ve encountered all manner of donations, and the fact is that most libraries are underfunded and will not be staffed well enough to be able to properly inspect every donation that comes through the door. Yes, first editions of ‘Old Man and the Sea’ have slipped though our grasp and into book sales. Rare LPs have even escaped me, and even books signed by deceased artists. Sure, at least 65% of what we’re given is moldy, torn, waterlogged, aged beyond reason or oily (which also describes the library’s patronage, curiously), but there are gems. Within library donations, I’ve rescued a book signed by Ayn Rand, a first edition of Stuart Little, and countless other sacred objects. It’s entirely likely that you’ll encounter something precious, or just genuinely fascinating, at your local library. And donations are usually at a constant influx - the stock is ever-changing and charmingly unpredictable.

Please, though - don’t dig through our boxes of donated books before we have a chance to add them to our collection. The assortment of books that we can offer the public on a lending basis takes priority over your personal collection, and unfortunately, I have to shoo the vultures away from our piles of donated books on a weekly basis.

Libraries need all of the support and patronage that they can get. While you’re there, check out a few books, interlibrary loan a few CDs of DVDs (which are ever-so-copiable, I hear), and increase their circulation statistics. It really helps when the annual budget comes around. Oh, and treat the person behind the desk nice - we love books, we love helping you out, but we’re not paid enough to deal with your garbage.

Thank you.

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Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect - Join our Collectors’ Community!

I’ve mentioned it before, but one of my many hats involves me working at a library, day in and day out for almost ten years now, much of it during weekends and evenings. It’s a small-town library, patronized half by unusual mountainfolk and half by new, young, well-off families moving into the areas where all of the trees were just chopped down from the backyards of the increasingly irate mountainfolk. I envision some kind of all-out battle to the death between the two diverse factions, Pelennor Fields style, and when the last crazy mountain hermit is slain, I pick through the wreckage for wallets and necklaces made from skulls of the local ‘varmints’, and leave town forever. At the end of it all, I hope to have enough of my soul left to regrow it in full, like those Magic Grow Crystals or Brainiac 13.

On the childrens’ floor of this library, there’s a glass display case near the entrance that’s often filled with books relevant to the season or a library event. It was recently suggested that I put my vast action figure collection to use in said display case… but what figures did I have that were related to literature?

As it turns out, just about all of them.

At the moment, the library system buzz is all about bringing young adults into libraries. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but one excellent way to lure these kids into libraries is the graphic novel, which are only now being lent legitimacy by the American Library Association as ‘the next big thing’. I like to think that I was way, way ahead of my time and the rest of the world is just catching up to my love of Mr. Mxyzptlk.

It’s easy to forget that Batman is actually a literary character. Sure, he’s usually accompanied by pictures and movies with sculpted rubber suit-nipples, but before anything else, he was written. The same goes for every legitimate superhero, and with these things earning literary credibility (with much help from Neil Gaiman’s multi-award winning adult-themed Sandman series), it was now okay to talk about ‘comic books’ in libraries. I don’t have to say that I ‘collect action figures’ anymore. I can say that I ‘collect articulated scale replicas of supernatural literary characters’. And then I could get punched in the face.

It wasn’t without hesitation that I started loaning out my action figures to the display, all perfectly preserved and complete in tupperware drawers and arranged on shelves. I’m the kind of person who likes to have everything at arm’s length… just in case. Just in case the nearby dam springs a Gollum-shaped hole and I need to plug it. You know. After the display got a lock on it, I carted in my Lord of the Rings collection (yes, also literary characters, believe it or not!) and left it in the hands of our childrens’ librarian.

Sure, she put an orc on a horse instead of a Warg, and prologue Bilbo doesn’t really belong near the other Hobbits, but it looks great. Treebeard clutches a Hobbit in his mighty hand, a slain warrior lies at the feet of Sauron. Some of the local kids set up the bottom shelf, which gave me a momentary palpitation when I learned of it, but everything checks out just fine, and toys are for kids anyhow, right?

I wasn’t so much a curator as a guy who happened to have a lot of related crap lying around. When I first unleashed these guys from their blister cards many years ago, I was hanging out in the dorms with my girlfriend and her roommate, and we all took part opening and examining the figures, so it was in this spirit of sharing that I loaned out my collection. When I lived in the dorms, I left a lot of my figures out and my roommate Brian would set them up in amusing poses when I was out of the room, which was always hilarious to come back to. Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus learned a lot about each other in those days…. but it’s never about having something, it’s about sharing.

Plus, what’s cooler than spending an afternoon with two cute girls and a dozen Lord of the Rings figures? The best of both worlds.