to dewey or not to dewey

I love books. I mean that in literally and otherwise. I have more than 800 books at the moment and I cannot help myself buying more. Many a weekend hour is spent in second hand booksops. While traveling in country towns, I try to check out the opshops for books as well. Its got worse since I discovered AbeBooks and Book Depository which have made buying books so much easier.

Over the years, I have had attempted many different approaches to organising my books. I have tried the obvious ones such as by author, by subject, to the more electic such as by when I bought it, by year of publication, by how the books related to each other. I have yet to find a system that works for me. For now, the books at home are not organised. They have just been ‘placed’ into the bookshelves as I unpacked the boxes from when I moved. At work, the books were organised in a vague manner around content but recently I cataloged all my books and they were just piled into the shelves. Last month, while I was on leave, two of my colleagues from the Design degree, to surprise me, decided to decorate my office. And to that end, arranged by books by colour. Not the best way to find a book, but it does look pretty nice.