How do you arrange your collections?

[TeresaJ]

I just spent some time rearranging my bookshelves. It is so, so satisfying. I do eventually reach a point where everything is in near-perfect harmony, but then furniture gets moved around, shelf length changes, books come and go.

For years I've arranged by books based on theme/mood (primary) and binding type/height (secondary). A lot of times book with similar themes will have similar color schemes, so it works even better.

Right now it's something like:

Economics --> Lewis Mumford, Moby Dick --> Post-colonialism --> Catholic Social Justice Teaching

Next shelf:

Childhood fantasy that left a deep impression on me --> medieval studies --> disaffected poetry --> disaffected novels --> motherhood --> women in the middle east --> the gulag archipelago

Next shelf:

T. E. Lawrence --> Islamic Studies --> the modern middle east

Then nursing books --> health, meditation... hoodoo...

I'm really, really happy that Onegin is next to The Unbearable Lightness of Being now, and Baghdad Burning is next to Solzhenitsyn.

It's like... making seating arrangements for a dinner party that brings together all of my favorite people.

[jigglypuff]

i arrange my books by genre/subject matter roughly, but i don't have a strict system.

that translates to one bookcase for art/design, one bookcase for fiction, one bookcase for non-fiction.

fiction books are in alphabetical order by author, and the others are organized by size/height.

my digital music collection is organized by artist>album>songs, compilation>songs (how else do you organize?). i used to input the years of recording/release, but that's probably excessive.

then i have cds of immediate interest in a cd case, LPs on one shelf, 45s in a box.

i don't really collect anything else?

i don't know if plants count. i have a small collection of carnivorous plants that i'm growing / adding to very gradually.

ideally, i'd like to "collect" chickens cuz they're wonderful (chicken ppl joke: they're like potato chips), but my collection would probably stop at a small number.

[rokki balbotox]

i shove important stuff and valuables into a bolted safe. i have a ton of national geographic magazines that are not organized in any order, but just stacked onto bookshelves.

[Hephaestus]

On shelves. Badly.

[Ptah]

Music: folders-system on a drive, by artist, then album. Physically, a smile disorganized pile of CDs.
Books: arranged by high-level subject-matter/nature. For instance, all occult books together. All computer-science books together, etc.
Movies: a rather disorganized pile of discs, another disorganized pile of files.
Video games: same as movies, as in: a disorganized pile.

[Ishaad T. Cock]

I get rid of everything physical - as much as I can get away with. Digital copies are often far more convenient and useful anyway.

Inventory is expensive. Think about how much you pay for your space, and consider how much of that is wasted on (and cluttered by) what are essentially trophies.


Now, here's a question. How the fuck do you organize your spices?

[Limes]

Largest to smallest.
Done

[Lilith]

I don’t have any collections now other than buttons, ha. I put them in boxes, sorted by color.

All the books I have are on the shelves, arranged by sizes. I don’t have a wide selection so they are not hard to find.