Ack!

[chickenfeet]

This apartment has about 135 feet of bookshelf and almost 40 feet of multimedia storage and its all full. Seriously full as in stuff double banked and piled in heaps. There is nowhere that more shelving could be fitted either. Do all book people suffer from this problem or are some of you good at chucking stuff out?

Comments

[thidwick.livejournal.com]

I definitely think all book people have this problem. Each year I try to go through our collection and weed things out to donate to the library book sale, but if I'm able to get four or five titles I'm doing well.

Right now our shelving is all full-to-overflowing like yours, but we do have room for more and that's one of our post-holiday projects. I find myself wondering sometimes what the collection will look like in five our ten years. Right now we've only had nine years out on our own to collect the things without parents making us get rid of them :-) and while we have a lot, I *know* it's nowhere near what you must have!

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

I find it difficult even to throw out duplicates! The only time I really manage it is if I can find a friend who wants them!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I have a substantial quantity of books in 'discard' piles, but I still haven't done much about getting rid of them (vast amounts of sf which I ought to get the local specialist dealer round to look at). One reason why I don't move is that only a no-longer-used public library would really be suitable.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I used to go out with a girl who owned a second hand bookstore but there was never enough room even there. Co-incidentally she writes SF.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And the shop didn't have a small space-time warp? I'm disappointed.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Throw books out? Never!
Have you tried rearranging the books so that ones of a similar size are next to each other? Means you can fit more in on top of them. :)
Treating the top of the bookcase and any space under it as extra shelves/space for piling has also helped in the past.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The one constraint we have is not putting books on top of the bookcases unless very close to the ceiling. The bengals find the scratchy surface irresistable.

I would never actually throw a book out but I have been known to donate them to Goodwill.