Finally, I’m done with the inventory of my library. I’ve gone through all the books in the house (that are mine) and checked them against my Excel sheet. It’s been a couple of years since I have inventoried my books and since I’ve done a couple of thorough clean-outs for the annual media sale, and neglected to remove the books I discarded from my list, it was completely out of sync. I need to be better about that.
You know what made it super easy and fast this time? I took photos with my iPad of each shelf and then checked them off the list. Easy-peasy!
What a nerd, eh?
I actually still need to check the books in Martin’s room because I know he has a couple of MY children’s books stashed in there, but I’ll get around to it at some point. Karin cleared out pretty much ALL her books recently, and I got some of my old ones back from her already (Frog & Toad, Toot & Puddle, Little Bear). Even with those additions, I’m still slowly winnowing books from my collection: books I haven’t read in years and am certain I won’t read again, or books I DO re-read and then decide that, again, I won’t ever re-read them.
There are a couple of books missing, loaned to friends and never returned (dammit) and at least two that have disappeared inexplicably that I wouldn’t have gotten rid of. What happened to my copies of Zusak’s The Book Thief and Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree?
According to my file, I have 1718 books, but I know that’s not quite accurate. If I add in the other children’s books that are stashed in Martin’s shelves and the shelf of cookbooks, I probably have at least 30 or so more than that. According to my calculations, I’ve actually gotten rid of something like 300 books in the last couple of years. They come, they go. I know I need to purge more of the never-read-agains but now I have an up-to-date idea of what I’m up against.
And it never hurts to know exactly what you have on hand when you’re looking for something to read and you know that if you kept it, it’s because it WAS a good book.