Book-lovers, let’s talk organization. How do you arrange your books? Shelves, crates, bookcase? Do you organize by author, subject/genre, or even by color? (I’m silently judging you if this is your choice... Just kidding.) Are you a fellow book hoarder, with hundreds of volumes stacked up on every flat surface in your home? Or do you prefer a pared-down arrangement that showcases your very favorite titles? Vertical or horizontal stacks? Every reader has preferences.

But what if you can’t or don’t want to manage your book collection? Do you want to make it prettier, or maybe more impressive? You might consider hiring a book curator. Yes, someone who will take your existing tomes and augment your collection to make it look fuller, more uniform, or more visually impressive. Books are, after all, decor as much as they are entertainment. 

But… why? 

Hiring a book curator is obviously not a step for people strapped for cash. But if you have some bucks to burn, one of these professionals can help you obtain a more uniform look to your collection. This may involve filling it out with new books, obtaining custom jackets to match a theme, or remodeling the space where your books are housed. If you have heaps of books and need help making sense of the chaos, you should lean towards a professional organizer.

Can’t I do this myself? 

Sure. If you have the time to kill, this is a good way to do it. Looking to round out a collection? Hit up estate sales, local library bookstores, used bookstores, and/or eBay and Amazon to find “new to you” tomes on the cheap. Book shopping can be a lot of fun! Organizing them is a matter of choice. Do you want your library to resemble that of a… library, with distinct classifications? (Fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, bios, art books, and self-help?) Do you want to go deeper within these classifications and sort by genre: romance, sci-fi, mystery, and so on? Or maybe you want a visual display? Making pyramids of different-sized books is fun, as is trying to stick to spines of all one color - white to brighten a space, or black to look distinguished, maybe. 

Is there any point to this?

Like I said earlier, books function uniquely as both decor and entertainment. But they should, primarily, make you happy. Whether that’s a patchwork hodgepodge of colors, shapes, and sizes, or a pristine arrangement of uniform volumes, what counts is that the books please you and encourage you to read. It is true that many people have many books that they will never read, but it is also true that books are aspirational objects. Wanting to show them off is understandable.