Books, Books, and More Books!

I've decided to organized, catalog, and make a list of our books. Often the kids want certain books but we have a hard time finding them. They are all on our shelves, but they haven't been organized every well. Often Web-princess wants only the books that are "her reading level" and Superstar just wants certain titles.

So I removed all of the books off the shelves in our living room and put them on the floor. I have a program on my computer that allows me to enter in books. Once the books are entered I can print of a list of how I want them to be organized. I figured once I have a list I will just organized the shelves according to the list.

Superstar suggested that once I'm done I give them each a special place marker to use on the shelves so that they would know where to put the books back when they are done with them. He said, "Mom we already have the rule one book at a time, so if we had a bookmark for the shelf we could just put it in the book's place and when we are done put the book back". The paper list would help them to know where to look for the book, learn what books we have, and perhaps encourage them to read items that they may not even known we had.

I see that it can work, however it just getting there. I'm STILL entering books! I knew we had a lot, but I really didn't think it was THAT much! I have 2 bookshelves in our living room, but only 2 shelves on these bookshelves really hold our books. The program I'm using is counting the books as they are entered. I have already entered in 120 books and I think I have about that much left! UGH! So we have 200-300 books easy! I had no idea that those 2 shelves held that many books. (And to think we are always looking for more and picking them up here and there.)

I had no idea we had SO many books! I'll be thankful when this little project is over! I admit it's a huge undertaking and much more work then I thought it would be, but it will be so worth it when I'm done. I've already discovered that we had some science text books that I was NOT aware that we had; books that I can use the next coming weeks.