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I'm a librarian (no kidding, you say) & people always expect me to get precious about physical books. And indeed, I used to be like that. However, cataloging rare books for 12 years has taught me a few things. Guess I'm doing a thread.
This might be tough love but folks, one, liking books isn't a substitute for having a personality.
All sorts of people enjoy all different kinds of books. Some like collecting physical volumes. Whether it's 1st eds, rare modern, incunabula, favorite authors... yay you!
All sorts of people enjoy all different kinds of books. Some like collecting physical volumes. Whether it's 1st eds, rare modern, incunabula, favorite authors... yay you!
If you collect, you want your books on the shelf in a particular way, most likely. However you choose to display them is just fine. If you want to retain monetary value, you'll want to figure out how to keep them from heat, damp, bugs, small children, etc.
But these have value, just like any other product, only because we (ppl who collect books) have decided they do. Paper books, since not long after the invention of movable type, have in general been produced to be disposable. THAT'S OK TOO.
There's nothing inherently valuable about the paper something is printed on. How much printed material do we throw away every day? Mailers, newspapers (ok, we *used to* throw them away), school papers, work memos... for a paperless society we still produce a ton of paper.
Any value in a book is value you ascribe to it. Collectors value rare items. Some readers value the sensory experience of reading a physical book. Some value the atmosphere books add to a home or -- yes -- the way they look on a bookshelf. All of those reasons are a-ok.
I've had gorgeous $$$ hand-bound & decorated volumes on my desk from the 15c dawn of printing. I've handled even earlier items -- illuminated ms from monasteries & scraps of parchment from the Middle Ages. A whole lot of books signed or annotated by famous dead white guys.
Some of those volumes still have chains & locks attached. They were locked up bc before movable type & rag paper they were among the most valuable items a person or institution could possess. Knowledge was rarified & jealously guarded. Y'all know this.
Historically, literacy? Not super valuable except for a certain few rich people & scholars. Most people couldn't read. Now it's pretty much the first thing we learn in school. (Stopping here to acknowledge that the teaching of reading in the U.S. is a WHOLE other topic.)
Books are relatively cheap & have been for 150 years or so. (Thanks, wood pulp!) (Again, in the context of the history of printing & book production. Universities don't chain volumes to the shelves anymore.) Lots of people have many books in their home.
But! Lots of people who enjoy reading do NOT have many books! Space constraints, income limitations, preference for e-readers, there are many reasons. This is once reason libraries still exist and yes, are still super popular & important!
If you have books -- look, we don't do this with other objects, really. Would you critique someone who posted a pic of their china cupboard bc you don't like how they arranged their teacups? Do you tell collectors how to organize their baseball cards or Barbie dolls?
I mean if you do, you're kind of being a jerk. Don't do that. And don't be all horrified & clutch your pearls when someone arranges their books in a way you don't like. No one is making YOU arrange your books by color or size or whatever. You do you.
The important thing -- literally THE most important thing -- is the text. Unless it's a family heirloom your great-grandpa made notes in, or whatever, a book is eminently replaceable. It exists in many formats. There is NO SHORTAGE OF MODERN PRINTED BOOKS. At all.
So recycle that book. Make art from the pages if you want. Throw it against the wall. Drop it in the bathtub (well, not your ereader). Make them pretty on the shelves in whatever way speaks to you. The text isn't going anywhere, absent major government censorship.
And even that hasn't destroyed many modern books. We still have the texts of Nadine Gordimer, Flaubert, Judy Blume, DH Lawrence, Nabokov, Anaïs Nin. Fanny Hill isn't going anywhere. Banning books has *never* had long term success, anywhere in the world.
Tl;dr: put your books on your shelves any damn way you please. Don't tell other people they are wrong for how they do it. Don't act like it's destroying some precious centuries-long tradition of shelving alphabetically by author. That's ... actually a fairly recent invention.
And while I'm at it, stop judging what people read as well as how they read. It's irritating, classist, sexist, & racist. What you might think of as "real literature" or worth reading was determined by a bunch of dead white guys. Like most things. Why do they still get to decide?
ONE MORE THING (sorry) mark your place however you like. Fold down the corner, use a receipt or a paper clip or a hair band. If it's a library book, try to refrain from using food bc someone is not paid enough to deal with that. The act of reading is the thing. Not the book.
