Book Organization: When to Use the Different Organization Methods

I do plan to have "book organization" be covered in two more posts coming in April - a Bookish Dilemma post and a Controversial Bookish Topic post - so stay tuned for those!

Today, I wanted to talk about the pros and cons of the different bookshelf organization methods. There is no right or wrong way to organize your books. And you can always change to a different organization method if you want. How you organize your books is completely up to you and no one else.

Organization by Alphabet, Author

This is a good one to use if you like seeing all of an author's books together. It's also quicker to find authors and their books if the books are in alphabetical order, because you roughly know what shelf they're on.

Organization by Alphabet, Publisher

This one is very similar to the Organization by Alphabet, Author. This one can be a bit more time consuming, since the publishing company isn't always advertised on the cover. (If this is the case, you have to go to the copyright page, which is usually right after the title page.) Authors also tend to use the same publisher for most of their books, so you'll have the author and their books together, for the most part.

Organization by Color

This is a good one to use if you want your bookshelf (or shelves) to look aesthetically pleasing. It tends to be nicer to post and see Bookstagram photos and BookTube videos where the bookshelf is organized by color. If you don't care about having series together, then this is a good one to go to for your aesthetic needs. However, if it's a pet peeve of yours when series aren't all together, then this isn't the organization method to use.

Organization by Genre

This is a good one to use if you have multiple genres. This is also a good organization method to use as a base organization and then have a 2nd organization method within it (i.e. organize by genre, and then by height or author). If you have a lot of Contemporary, YA, Fantasy, Classics, and Sci-Fi, then you can organize your books within those genres.

Organization by Height

This is a good one to use if you still want some aesthetic to your bookshelf, but you don't want to separate the series you have. It won't be as aesthetically pleasing as Organization by Color, but there some pleasing aspect of having your books organized by height. It can be tough, though, and a bit time consuming to organize your books this way because some books may be just slightly taller than another by 1/4 of an inch, which is annoying. So if your books either vary greatly in height (with not much in between, height wise) or are generally about the same size, this one may not be a good organization method to use.

As mentioned above, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to organize your books. And you can always use a combination of organization methods. You can organize by genre and then alphabetically by author. Or you could organize by color and then by height. It's up to you and what you want for your bookshelf.