Our family is in the middle of a large house remodeling project. Essentially we are living in half of a house.
This only poses a problem… for my books.
I recently attended two conferences in which advanced reader copies are part of the landscape. Many go to students and other librarians, but obviously a few stay behind until I read them and pass them on. Add this to the fact that I’m on an award committee and an avid reader to boot and that means that there are a lot of books in the house. I stop by the public library (in addition to working in one) at least twice weekly. Then I went and created two human beings who are also readers.
So let’s talk where you keep your books: do you have bookshelves? Bins? Are they propping up end tables? In Rubbermaid containers? Where do you put the books you’ve read versus the books that are yet-to-be-read?
I am never without a stack of TBR books in the house, which means that even if there’s a large stack, I’ll still bring home more. I need options. But then there are the books that are mine to keep and treasure for always. These books don’t mix with to-be-read books like food on my plate. Again, this poses a staging problem in our yet-to-be-finished house.
With the new addition to the house, we will have an office that I’m lovingly calling the studio. And in this studio there will be a wall of bookshelves (yes, ONE. WHOLE. WALL. I know, *swoon*). But until then, I’m moving them around and storing them in unfinished rooms, hidden in footstools, on a shelf in the basement. My forever books are on a bookshelf in our temporary bedroom, but everything else? Organized chaos everywhere. It’s still a game of nooks and crannies.
Where do you keep your books and how are they organized?
Some of these will get their own posts, but like I said to the teacher today when I was dropping off some books for her to peruse in preparation for our new adventure, “you made my librarian heart full today, thank you!”
As a large city school district, we have the ability to host three drives a year: October, January, and May and collect about 100 units per drive which is amazingly powerful. A smattering of staff, but the majority of these units are donated by upperclassmen looking to help our community.
How do I feel? In one word, accomplished. I saw the yearlong activity through from January through December. I posted each week using the prompts and in between with other blogging-related content like book reviews and librarian activities. I’d say that it’s a characteristic of my personality, the need to accomplish an activity once it’s started. Ultimately every library activity from author visits (planned years in advance sometimes) to preparation for the year ahead is an exercise in perseverance. Students may change, the weather even, and administration or colleagues, but inside you need to revisit the concepts and the reasons, refining them and getting as close to perfection as they can before the launch. You hear this from authors whose published books began years before.
Whether I’m coming or going, my home city is always a sight and was actually the center of quite a lot of 
Readers Be Advised 