Theological Library Organization: The Method That Sticks
Last time we answered the question how do you build a theological library? Today: now that you own one, how do you sort it? How do you decide where things go and make them most accessible?
Walter Shaw, a faithful viewer of this channel and a YouTuber himself, recently put out a video on the different ways to sort a library. That was my original plan, but he beat me to it! So instead, I'll go more in depth on how I sort mine. It isn't a perfect system, and I'm not claiming it's the best way. If you have a better system, let me know.
Sorted by category
Essentially, everything in my library is sorted by category. In the last part of this series I divided a theological library into eight categories, and most of what's on my shelves falls into those, plus a few things that don't fit.
I've also just added labels to every shelf. It looks a little tacky (and pardon my handwriting, it looks like chicken scratch), but it keeps things much more organized. Commentaries and reference. Systematic theology. The works of Ryle, Traill, Gurnall and Toplady. Miscellaneous theology. Jay and Spurgeon (not complete works, so they get their own label). Biography. American history. Church worship and music: hymnals, common prayer and worship books, and some music books.
Why sort this way?
1. Other people can find your books. I'm a full-time student twelve hours from home. If I need a book for a paper, I can ask my mother to find it, and that's much easier than if everything were randomly scattered. If I need Berkhof's Systematic Theology, she goes to the systematic theology shelf and there it is. That's something I'm going to drive home in this series: the main purpose of a library is to share it with other people. If other people can't access it easily, that defeats the purpose. I know where all my books are, but I want someone who doesn't to be able to find them rather easily.
2. Downsizing and your will. I'm not looking into this quite yet, but if you're getting up in age and want to downsize, or you're writing your will, having everything categorized makes it so much easier. You can say, "All my commentaries and reference books go to this person or organization," and nothing gets accidentally added or lost. If I wanted to give my commentaries to Bob (I don't even have a friend named Bob, but if I did), someone just has to find that shelf and give it to Bob.
That's how I sort my library. It's one of probably thousands of ways. If you sort yours differently, I'd love to hear your ideas.
Soli Deo Gloria!
