Book Shelf

[manix]

I am looking for some good innovative ideas to build a book shelf for my home. This will have my books, my kids books, my personal files (hard-copies) etc. It should be look really creative and be easily transportable too from one location to another.

I have around 500+ books to store.

Can you please suggest?

[Vivek Sivaram]

hello Manix

I could suggest what we do in our home for managing books. Since three of us studied engineering, we ourselves have quite a load of books.

When we were in Coimbatore, we bought 2 "Godrej" book racks. The best part is that they are completely collapsible and can be transported easily.

The gauge of the steel used is good too. So if you have a lot of hardbound books , you do not have to worry that the shelf would bend.

The cost of one rack was around 1500/- three or four years back. I will try and post some pictures in the blog for your benefit.

Each rack has 4 rows and you could also use the top if you wanted to.

Make sure you get some angles which would prevent books on the edge from falling over. Hope you found this useful.

[karthik]

I'm not so sure that they are Godrej. It's also popularly known as slotted angles. They are quite sturdy and do the job, but there are however a few issues with them

1) They are too broad. So if you put them against the wall, you will not be able to reach one row of books. (It's more suited to libraries I guess where books are arranged on both sides bu not putting it against a wall.)

2) Aesthetically, it's not very appealing.

3) The height of each shelf (though can be adjusted) is normally a little more than is necessary for standard size books.

To store books I would suggest this:

1) First sort them according to dimensions. (Some dimensions are very popular and hence chances are the books you buy in the future will also be of the same size)
2) Get a carpenter to make shelves according to the dimensions. The number of books you have of each dimension will decide how the shelf will look.
 This way not only do you books fit in snugly, you also make most use of the space.
3) For important files, documents...etc a 'Chest of Drawers' or a 'File Cabinet' would be more appropriate. However the same can be asthetically built onto the shelves you design and ask your carpenter to build.
4) You can explore with the type of wood and maybe even paint the exteriors with paint.

Putting the bookshelf away from direct sunlight and from too much moisture or some damp place will keep the books in decent condition. Also make sure you get a termite coat if the shelf is going to be made of wood.

[karthik]

A couple more things we could keep in mind,

- By making the width of the shelf small, the sagging can be reduced. The more the width, the more it will sag with weight
-Always store the heavier books in the bottom shelf.

[Vivek Sivaram]

@ Manix

We have posted the image of our book shelf in the blog. Please have a look at :

http://aavaas.com/2008/01/21/steel-adjustable-book-shelf-query-from-forums/

[Deep Trance]

Manix,
Not sure why you want to make 500 books mobile at short notice

However, you can have some fun by arranging the books color coded in an open shelf. It was done in the local public library to some good reviews. The color of the book sleeves in a row or column should be of the same color or thereabouts.

Vijay

[Kathy]

Arranging books by colour (or size) seems to me to be quite an unusual way of storing books. I arrange mine (and I have 4 huge bookshelves full of differently sized books) by language and then by genre or author or subject.

Cheers,
Kathy