Many people with large collections simply give up on cataloging their books.
Imagine walking into a library, asking where a book is and hearing that it's located under the bust of Nero. Robert Cotton, an eccentric English antiquarian, used a cataloging system for his large book collection based upon a series of busts depicting Roman emperors. Cataloging systems for home libraries have, fortunately, come a long way since Cotton's time. If you're going to catalog all of your books, you'll have multiple systems, including simple alphabetical order, the Dewey Decimal System and the Library of Congress Classification, to choose from.
Instructions
1. Put all your books in alphabetical order. Then use database or spreadsheet software to make a simple alphabetical list of your books. The first column of your entry should contain the author's last name followed by his first name, and the second column should contain the book's title. For example:
Column 1: Updike, John.
Column 2: "The Centaur."
2. Add publication information to your catalog entries. The amount of information you choose to include is up to you, but you should include at least two columns, one containing the name of the publisher and one the year of publication.
Column 1: Updike, John.
Column 2: "The Centaur."
Column 3: "Alfred A. Knopf."
Column 4: 1963.
3. Decide how you would like to place your books on the shelf. You may simply choose alphabetical order but, if you do so, you may still want to associate certain books with a subject rather than an author. For instance, you may choose to put Joseph Blotner's biography of William Faulkner in the "F"s alongside your copies of Faulkner's "Light in August" and "Absalom, Absalom!" rather than in the "B"s.
Faulkner, William. "Absalom, Absalom!"
Faulkner, William. "Light in August."
Blotner, Joseph. "Faulkner: A Biography."
You can also use a cataloging system, such as the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Classification. The copyright pages of most books published in the second half of the 20th century contain their Library of Congress Classification, and you can use the Library of Congress's website to find information about books published earlier. A broad outline of the Dewey Decimal System appears below:
000 -- Computer science, information and general works
100 -- Philosophy and psychology
200 -- Religion
300 -- Social sciences
400 -- Language
500 -- Science (including mathematics)
600 -- Technology and applied science
700 -- Arts and recreation
800 -- Literature
900 -- History, geography and biography
You can find more information about about cataloging books according to the Dewey Decimal System at the Monroe County Public Library's website.
4. Add information about your books' Dewey Decimal System class or Library of Congress Classification to your spreadsheet or database if you choose to use either of these systems.
5. Arrange books on the shelf according to the system you've decided to use. If you're using alphabetical order, simply place the books on the shelf. If you use the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Classification, either write the classification system inside books using a pencil or put small white stickers with the classification on the books' spines.
