How Should RPG Books Be Organized - on your shelf?

[aramis erak]

These days, plastic "milk crates" are available in Target, and many other fine college-student-serving establishments.

And dairy suppliers will sell unbranded direct to customers if you want the actually durable ones used by the milk industry.

 

[schneeland]

Anyone who organizes their books by color should be in jail.

But what about color and size?

More seriously: I had originally grouped my books by (1) genre, (2) system, (3) language and (4) type (rules, setting, adventure). However, I have since shrunk my collection of definitive keepers to just one (Expedit/Kallax) compartment. So now they are part of the general "nerd/hobby shelf", in which books of the same kind (RPG books, adventure game books, comics/graphic novels, fantasy classics, etc.) are in the same compartment. Within those compartments they are then usually arranged in smaller groups, but also with a bit of size ordering (larger books left).

 

[giant.robot]

I have...many books but fewer than I've had in the past. I like to group them by system and try to roughly order them left to right with the main rulebook first and then supplements then adventures.

Right now I've got a full sized bookshelf in my office filled with books. I also am a fan of milk crates and use those in the closet where they're a little less visible.

I've found Home Depot's crates superior to what Target carries but below dairy quality. Plenty durable for holding books.

 

[Staffan]

Clearly, they should be organized alphabetically by page count. So sixty-four goes before thirty-two which goes before two hundred and fifty-six.

 

[delericho]

Clearly, they should be organized alphabetically by page count. So sixty-four goes before thirty-two which goes before two hundred and fifty-six.

Heh.

When organizing our DVDs a number of years ago, I wasn't sure what to do about films with numbers in the title. I eventually settled on treating the number as though it was a word, and shelving that way - so "300" went next to "Three Musketeers, The".

Which was great, until I came to my copy of "28 Days Later" and my wife's copy of "27 Dresses".

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Heh.

When organizing our DVDs a number of years ago, I wasn't sure what to do about films with numbers in the title. I eventually settled on treating the number as though it was a word, and shelving that way - so "300" went next to "Three Musketeers, The".

Which was great, until I came to my copy of "28 Days Later" and my wife's copy of "27 Dresses".

Getting into the details of alphabetizing:

• Articles are appended at the end, "the, a, an"
• Punctuation first, in order of the keyboard from top left to lower right. There aren't a lot of things that start with punctuation, however I had a game called #&%! so I had to figure that out. Note, if something was called "Exclamation Point" it would be filed under "E". Unlike numbers, below.
• Numbers, including word numbers (the word Three is considered like 3) come after punctuation.
• Spaces are ignored. So "Morning Dove" would come before "Morn Ingots"
• Author names that begin with Mc or Mac (or other variations thereof) are alphabetized purely. In other words MacMasters would be before McCarthy which would be before McMasters
• Names and words with diacritics, accents, cedillas, etc are treated like the letters in english with out the diacritic. So é is treated as e.

 

[The Soloist]

When I had 100+ books it was by genre, alphabetical (author) and their series were alphabetical too. Now I only have 10 novels by Glen Cook. Everything else is digital.

Physical RPG books have always been organized by the level of use. Commonly used books are at chest level, left to right, by level of activity. Everything else was by genre and alphabetical. Rare ones on the top shelves. That too was downsized in favour of PDFs. Now I have only six RPGs in book form: four fantasy, a modern, a cyberpunk and a sci-fi game. There are so few they are organized by genre only.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Protect at all cost at the too

Acceptable to be lost in a flood at the bottom

 

[paradisebunny]

When I had 100+ books it was by genre, alphabetical (author) and their series were alphabetical too. Now I only have 10 novels by Glen Cook. Everything else is digital.

Physical RPG books have always been organized by the level of use. Commonly used books are at chest level, left to right, by level of activity. Everything else was by genre and alphabetical. Rare ones on the top shelves. That too was downsized in favour of PDFs. Now I have only six RPGs in book form: four fantasy, a modern, a cyberpunk and a sci-fi game. There are so few they are organized by genre only.

Can ask what your preferred way of reading PDFs is? I find myself moving in a similar direction. Currently mostly using iPad and Apple Books for syncing, but iCloud is on the pricey side, though I do like the bookshelf view and manual sorting of shelves

 

[The Soloist]

Can ask what your preferred way of reading PDFs is? I find myself moving in a similar direction. Currently mostly using iPad and Apple Books for syncing, but iCloud is on the pricey side, though I do like the bookshelf view and manual sorting of shelves

My portable iMac computer with an external disk. I prefer the larger screen.