My PERSONAL LIBRARY system

My system... I needed SIMPLE and EASY to do..

  I didn't need a library system on the house, yet I wanted our books to go along with school... KINDA..

  FIRST: I went to the local Wal-Mart and bought some Avery labels... I bought a few packages because well, we had a good chunk of books..  

SECOND: I got scotch tape, but you can use clear label type tape or something too.

THIRD: I had the kids help me pull ALL our books and put them on the table

FOURTH: I made piles of new books... 

        Pile One: Any book that was science related

        Pile Two:  Any book History related (even Biographies)

        Pile Three:  Books about Geography

        Pile Four:  Books about music

        Pile Five: Bible related books

        Pile Six: Books that build character, manners and such

        Pile Seven: EVERYTHING ELSE

FIFTH:   Look at Piles, my Pile 7 was HUGE, so this became my PINK STICKERS!

              I figured History and Geography go hand in hand so that became YELLOW!

              Science reminds me of growing, green is a grow color.. so yep they are GREEN!

              I tossed Music, Bible and Character all into ORANGE

SIXTH:  Let the fun begin!!!  more organizing

SEVENTH:  ORANGE -->  letters --> B = Bible

                                                          C = Character Building

                                                          M = Music

                take each pile, write the letter with a permanent marker (skinny point) or pen and stick to binding of book...  Have a helper (husband's are good at this) to add tape over the sticker, give to next helper (kids are good) and stick on shelf for ORANGE BOOKS!   

EIGHTH:  YELLOW --)  letters -->  H = History

                                                      G = Geography

                                                    GH = those books that put history and geo together

          (follow above steps)

NINTH:  you got it.. It's GREEN time.. 

        now we use APOLOGIA science... so I went with that for my labels.. examples:

                   Z = zoology

                   A = astronomy

                  B = botany

                  HA = human anatomy

                  R= resource type books

                  W = weather, nature books

                               If we couldn't fit one of those.. I left it blank... 

TENTH:  Okay, take a deep breath... blow it out.. and don't do this pile today... LOL.. (assuming you just sat down like me and did the other 3 in one day).. take a mental break.. grab some coffee, chocolate or whatever.. and then sit down to this huge pile if your like me anyways.. This is probably 1/2 of your books stash.. 

 Here is what I did...  

            Make more PILEs!!!  

                 (can you tell that organizing within the organization is like fun to me.. )

 So here's my piles: 

  Books I figure our great LITERATURE

  Fun EVERYDAY reading or EASY reading

  FICTION

  Books that are a SERIES

  POETRY

  ALPHABET BOOKS

Now I am still fine working this pink tabs...  For me the Fiction and Everyday Easy Readers was my harder part... what I SHOULD HAVE done (and may do sometime) is make a FUN/FICTION pile and EARLY/EASY reading pile.. 

  This gave me letters:  L = Literature

                                  E = Early Reading (Picture books - 2nd grade level)]

                                  F = books for Fun and Fiction

                                  S = series

                                  A= alphabet

  Now my bookshelves look like this:  Now I wish I had better bookshelves.. but I don't.. so for now this must work for us.. several smaller areas we put books.. but it helps my brain work better.. and when we want a book about.... We know where to start... so much easier to find books for school too!