Different Ways to Organize Your Bookshelf

The big debate: what's the best way to organize your books?  Should you shelve them alphabetically?  What about by series or by favourites?  How about colour coding?  There may be no right way to organize your books, but we all have our favourites.  Or maybe you're hating the way you do it and are looking for a new style.  In that case, take a look below and consider some of these methods.

1. Alphabetical

This is probably the most obvious way to arrange your books and one that I used for quite a few years (even after it became stupid to continue doing so).  Provided you remember the name of the author that you're looking for, you can easily find whatever book you're looking for in just a couple seconds.  However, if you have a lot of books this isn't necessarily the best way to arrange them.  What happens when you get another "Armstrong" or "Aveyard" and have to shift every single book along the shelf?  When you have six different shelves like I do, this can get real tedious real fast.

2. Group by Series

This is obviously a great way to keep your book series without being tied to keeping all books by an author together.  It can give you more leeway with how you choose to organize your books.  And when the series is already finished then you can just put the books together and go.  Unfortunately, it's not the greatest for series that are still getting new releases.  If these series are towards the end of your shelf then it's not too bad.  If they're at the beginning of your shelf though then you're stuck shifting all the books after it if you didn't leave some space.

3. Group by Themes

This can be a great way to keep all the books relating to one thing together.  Contemporary fiction goes together, sci-fi goes together, classics go together, etc.  Whenever you're in the mood for a specific type of book you can know exactly where to go on your shelves.  However, you still run into the problem of shifting books around as you get new additions.

4. Group by Favourites

It's always nice to be able to put all your favourites in one space.  You could dedicate a shelf for your all-time favourites and then arrange the rest of the shelves in some other way.  Or you could line your shelves from favourites to least favourites.  Just remember, if you find a new favourite you may have to do some shifting around with them.

5. Rainbow Colour Coding

Though time consuming, this style can look amazing when done well and can earn you a ton of compliments on your shelves, particularly if they're in a more public space such as your living room.  This style can work well for you if you're not particularly fussy about keeping entire series or an author's works together.  And, if you remember what colour the spine is, it's not too difficult to find a book you're looking for.  However, part of this design is having enough books with the right colour - it may not look as great if you have fifty red spines and only two green.  Another thing to keep in mind is that if you don't remember what colour a book is then it may be challenging to locate a specific one.

6. All One Colour (Black, White, Etc)

Using construction paper or something similar, you can wrap all your book covers and make them a nice uniform.  This can give your shelves a nice clean look which you can then add pops of colour to with decorative items.  Unfortunately, it's practically impossible to find a specific book when you're looking for it.  On the plus side, if you don't know what to read next just pull one off the shelf and go for it!

7. Increasing (or Decreasing) Height

Arranging your books by increasing or decreasing heights can add an interesting look to your shelves.  It can look particularly cool if you stagger your shelves with an increasing, decreasing, increasing height pattern as you go down the shelf.  However, works in the same series or by the same author may not necessarily be able to be kept together.  So, if that's your thing this may not be the best style for you to use.

8. Let Them Do Their Own Thing, Arrange Them Willy-Nilly!

If you've got hundreds of books to keep organized, but just don't have the time, then this way might be best for you.  When you have tons of books, listing alphabetically just isn't practical.  By putting your books wherever they fit on the shelf you no longer have to worry about shifting them around all the time.  Be warned though, depending on the amount of books you have it can be extremely difficult to find a specific one when you need it.

So, which shelving method do you favour?  Or do you have another method to keep your books organized?  I'd love to hear your thoughts, so let me know in the comments!