G
Guest
Guest
I think I have the same no. of bookcases, but most 5' only (one 7' for music and dance). I'm a completist until I realize I don't have the money or space to go on. What about you? - Perdita
A Bibliophile, 3,600 Friends and a System - CAROLE BRADEN, NY times
SOFT-VOICED and carefully spoken, Kathie Coblentz displays the studious demeanor you would expect from someone who has been cataloging materials at the New York Public Library for 36 years. But browse her home library, which she estimates at 3,600 volumes, and you will find a lampoon of library science's organizational schemes.
Her 16 bookcases - about 214 running feet - reveal no deference to John Dewey and his decimal system and varying degrees of respect for the alphabetical-by-author rule. Indeed, it seems she has grouped her books less by subject than by country of origin. Dust-free and with carefully cracked spines (a sign that books have been read, or at least leafed through), the books in Ms. Coblentz's library are navigable to no one but her.
"Your system doesn't have to be logical, it just has to work for you," said Ms. Coblentz, the author of "The New York Public Library Guide to Organizing a Home Library" (Running Press, 2003). Those who can't see their walls - or floors or tabletops - can consider that advice encouraging.
As decorating trends swing to the traditional, home libraries are becoming more of a preoccupation, posing challenges for decorators as well as for book lovers. "Every room can have bookcases," said Thomas Jayne, an interior designer and book lover who designs libraries for clients and who believes that guest rooms, hallways, even bathrooms (nonsteamy ones, that is) can be ideal domains for books.
Buzz Kelly, a designer at Jed Johnson Associates, has devised a string of book-dedicated spaces in the last year. These days "a library is as standard as a master bedroom," he said, citing one client's recent decision to sacrifice a formal dining room for an eat-in kitchen and a cubby filled with leather-lined shelves for the family's books.
Ms. Coblentz, 57, who catalogs for the library's Rare Books Division and the Spencer Collection, which includes illustrated books and illuminated manuscripts, may be an extreme home librarian, but most book lovers can relate to her desire for order of some sort.
When a debate erupts at dinner, who among us hasn't wanted to reach for backup and find it exactly where it should be: between the obscure Civil War textbooks and the collected works of Jane Austen, of course.
Some groupings within libraries may represent phases of their owner's life, with a shelf devoted to high school and college yearbooks, for example, and another to books by friends and idols to be ingested...soon. Some people organize their books to reflect different moods and needs (erotica and poetry in the bedroom, never-read classics in the study, James Patterson and Jackie Collins in the coat closet).
Alas, for many accumulators a reckoning comes when it takes so long to locate the obras of Luís de Camões that the desire to recite the poems is gone.
Ms. Coblentz, whose 900-square-foot one-bedroom apartment is also home to several piles of "orphan" books, agreed to demonstrate her system for getting those maybe-reads in a row.
The best way to start, she said, is by determining the number of available "shelf feet" and the "book feet" competing for the space (don't forget those boxes at Manhattan Mini Storage). Next, come up with a classification system of categories and subcategories. You might start with fiction and nonfiction, quick reads versus long, even read and unread; then group the books by genre (children's books, science fiction, romance novels) or subject matter (art history, herb gardening, Volkswagen repair). Now look at every book, separating those worthy of shelf space from those you will set free.
This task may be the hardest. Nicholas Basbanes, author of the bibliophile bible "Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century" (Henry Holt, 2002) and a keeper of 20,000 volumes, confessed that he regularly gives books to charity sales, then drops by to rummage and buys back his own donations.
Before Ms. Coblentz moved to her apartment she gave away hundreds of books. She still brought 70 boxes with her. To house them she invested in seven professional-grade bookcases, each more than seven feet tall, from Dallek Office Furnishings. Before arranging her books, she created a cataloging system: each bookcase and shelf gets a number, and space is allotted to categories and subcategories according to their estimated "book feet" requirements.
Grouped by country of origin - Ms. Coblentz speaks or reads 10 languages - the collection includes 12 shelves of classic German literature and 14 of Swedish mysteries. In her bedroom are two narrow oak bookcases holding dictionaries and foreign-language books and another small bookcase for cookbooks and English and American literature.
Since most shelves are at capacity, new finds necessitate "overflow" shelves and annex units, including a library cart in a corner of the living room.
To avoid the warping that results when tall books are interspersed with short ones, Ms. Coblentz has subdivided her categories by size, ranked 1 to 5; 1 is devoted to diminutive books including some Swedish tails, travel guides and comics.
Personal categories, of course, reflect personal sentiments: Ms. Coblentz's "special meaning" section includes a book her parents read to her as a child, Walter Carruthers Sellar and Robert Julian Yeatman's "1066 and All That; and Now All This" (Blue Ribbon Books, circa 1940). A glass-enclosed case in her bedroom will contain, once she finishes reading it, a treasured mid-1800's first-edition of Charles Lever's "Confessions of Con. Cregan: The Irish Gil Blas" containing images by Hablot K. Browne, better known as Charles Dickens's frequent illustrator, Phiz.
And there are her personal obsessions. It turns out Ms. Coblentz is a voracious consumer of Clint Eastwood films and has a large category dedicated to him. It includes an anthology, "Clint Eastwood: Interviews" (University of Mississippi Press, 1999), which she helped edit. Clumped in two of the giant cases are some 60 Eastwood-related books (subcategories: biographies, screenplays, collectible midcentury Westerns). A recently acquired copy of F. X. Toole short stories, originally titled "Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner" but published this year by Ecco as a movie tie-in under the name "Million Dollar Baby," will also find its spot once she has finished devouring it. "I'm a completist where Eastwood is concerned," Ms. Coblentz said.
Ms. Coblentz has a few hard rules. She never packs shelves tightly (strains the bindings) and does not "double shelve," or stack rows behind rows (keeps books from breathing and triggers looking-for-Goethe-in-a-haystack syndrome).
But she prides herself on occasionally bucking her own guidebook's suggestions. Surveying her shelves to make room for the orphans, she unabashedly revealed books in which she had written notes (don't do that) and one that she had borrowed from a friend and forgotten to return (don't do that either).
When she moved to her apartment 12 years ago, Ms. Coblentz vowed to clip her book-buying compulsion - a challenge for someone who works at the library's main branch and wanders Coliseum Books on 42nd Street during her lunch hour. "You can't just go acquiring books indiscriminately," she said. Then she laughed. "But I definitely believe in supporting my local independent bookstore whenever possible."
"The New York Public Library Guide to Organizing a Home Library" is sold as a component of The N.Y.P.L. Home Library System, complete with cataloging software and a binder for keeping track of titles; for information, www.thelibraryshop.org.
A Bibliophile, 3,600 Friends and a System - CAROLE BRADEN, NY times
SOFT-VOICED and carefully spoken, Kathie Coblentz displays the studious demeanor you would expect from someone who has been cataloging materials at the New York Public Library for 36 years. But browse her home library, which she estimates at 3,600 volumes, and you will find a lampoon of library science's organizational schemes.
Her 16 bookcases - about 214 running feet - reveal no deference to John Dewey and his decimal system and varying degrees of respect for the alphabetical-by-author rule. Indeed, it seems she has grouped her books less by subject than by country of origin. Dust-free and with carefully cracked spines (a sign that books have been read, or at least leafed through), the books in Ms. Coblentz's library are navigable to no one but her.
"Your system doesn't have to be logical, it just has to work for you," said Ms. Coblentz, the author of "The New York Public Library Guide to Organizing a Home Library" (Running Press, 2003). Those who can't see their walls - or floors or tabletops - can consider that advice encouraging.
As decorating trends swing to the traditional, home libraries are becoming more of a preoccupation, posing challenges for decorators as well as for book lovers. "Every room can have bookcases," said Thomas Jayne, an interior designer and book lover who designs libraries for clients and who believes that guest rooms, hallways, even bathrooms (nonsteamy ones, that is) can be ideal domains for books.
Buzz Kelly, a designer at Jed Johnson Associates, has devised a string of book-dedicated spaces in the last year. These days "a library is as standard as a master bedroom," he said, citing one client's recent decision to sacrifice a formal dining room for an eat-in kitchen and a cubby filled with leather-lined shelves for the family's books.
Ms. Coblentz, 57, who catalogs for the library's Rare Books Division and the Spencer Collection, which includes illustrated books and illuminated manuscripts, may be an extreme home librarian, but most book lovers can relate to her desire for order of some sort.
When a debate erupts at dinner, who among us hasn't wanted to reach for backup and find it exactly where it should be: between the obscure Civil War textbooks and the collected works of Jane Austen, of course.
Some groupings within libraries may represent phases of their owner's life, with a shelf devoted to high school and college yearbooks, for example, and another to books by friends and idols to be ingested...soon. Some people organize their books to reflect different moods and needs (erotica and poetry in the bedroom, never-read classics in the study, James Patterson and Jackie Collins in the coat closet).
Alas, for many accumulators a reckoning comes when it takes so long to locate the obras of Luís de Camões that the desire to recite the poems is gone.
Ms. Coblentz, whose 900-square-foot one-bedroom apartment is also home to several piles of "orphan" books, agreed to demonstrate her system for getting those maybe-reads in a row.
The best way to start, she said, is by determining the number of available "shelf feet" and the "book feet" competing for the space (don't forget those boxes at Manhattan Mini Storage). Next, come up with a classification system of categories and subcategories. You might start with fiction and nonfiction, quick reads versus long, even read and unread; then group the books by genre (children's books, science fiction, romance novels) or subject matter (art history, herb gardening, Volkswagen repair). Now look at every book, separating those worthy of shelf space from those you will set free.
This task may be the hardest. Nicholas Basbanes, author of the bibliophile bible "Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century" (Henry Holt, 2002) and a keeper of 20,000 volumes, confessed that he regularly gives books to charity sales, then drops by to rummage and buys back his own donations.
Before Ms. Coblentz moved to her apartment she gave away hundreds of books. She still brought 70 boxes with her. To house them she invested in seven professional-grade bookcases, each more than seven feet tall, from Dallek Office Furnishings. Before arranging her books, she created a cataloging system: each bookcase and shelf gets a number, and space is allotted to categories and subcategories according to their estimated "book feet" requirements.
Grouped by country of origin - Ms. Coblentz speaks or reads 10 languages - the collection includes 12 shelves of classic German literature and 14 of Swedish mysteries. In her bedroom are two narrow oak bookcases holding dictionaries and foreign-language books and another small bookcase for cookbooks and English and American literature.
Since most shelves are at capacity, new finds necessitate "overflow" shelves and annex units, including a library cart in a corner of the living room.
To avoid the warping that results when tall books are interspersed with short ones, Ms. Coblentz has subdivided her categories by size, ranked 1 to 5; 1 is devoted to diminutive books including some Swedish tails, travel guides and comics.
Personal categories, of course, reflect personal sentiments: Ms. Coblentz's "special meaning" section includes a book her parents read to her as a child, Walter Carruthers Sellar and Robert Julian Yeatman's "1066 and All That; and Now All This" (Blue Ribbon Books, circa 1940). A glass-enclosed case in her bedroom will contain, once she finishes reading it, a treasured mid-1800's first-edition of Charles Lever's "Confessions of Con. Cregan: The Irish Gil Blas" containing images by Hablot K. Browne, better known as Charles Dickens's frequent illustrator, Phiz.
And there are her personal obsessions. It turns out Ms. Coblentz is a voracious consumer of Clint Eastwood films and has a large category dedicated to him. It includes an anthology, "Clint Eastwood: Interviews" (University of Mississippi Press, 1999), which she helped edit. Clumped in two of the giant cases are some 60 Eastwood-related books (subcategories: biographies, screenplays, collectible midcentury Westerns). A recently acquired copy of F. X. Toole short stories, originally titled "Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner" but published this year by Ecco as a movie tie-in under the name "Million Dollar Baby," will also find its spot once she has finished devouring it. "I'm a completist where Eastwood is concerned," Ms. Coblentz said.
Ms. Coblentz has a few hard rules. She never packs shelves tightly (strains the bindings) and does not "double shelve," or stack rows behind rows (keeps books from breathing and triggers looking-for-Goethe-in-a-haystack syndrome).
But she prides herself on occasionally bucking her own guidebook's suggestions. Surveying her shelves to make room for the orphans, she unabashedly revealed books in which she had written notes (don't do that) and one that she had borrowed from a friend and forgotten to return (don't do that either).
When she moved to her apartment 12 years ago, Ms. Coblentz vowed to clip her book-buying compulsion - a challenge for someone who works at the library's main branch and wanders Coliseum Books on 42nd Street during her lunch hour. "You can't just go acquiring books indiscriminately," she said. Then she laughed. "But I definitely believe in supporting my local independent bookstore whenever possible."
"The New York Public Library Guide to Organizing a Home Library" is sold as a component of The N.Y.P.L. Home Library System, complete with cataloging software and a binder for keeping track of titles; for information, www.thelibraryshop.org.
Now, I can't find 1 anywhere.
