Arranging your magic library

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Seth
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Arranging your magic library

Postby Seth » April 14th, 2005, 3:40 pm

Hello all, long time reader, first time poster...

Not sure if this is the right forum but couldn't think where else to post this.

Wanted to ask how you guys arrange your magic libraries? by author, title, category, autobiographically :) or otherwise...

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Gord
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Gord » April 14th, 2005, 4:20 pm

Well, considering I couldn't understand the dewey decimal system, I decided to seperate my magic books into hard cover and soft cover, then I arranged them alphabetical by author.
It's not a complecated system and, truth be told, I think for a collection my size (Only a hundred or so books, but growing) works better then the dewy decimal system.
I hope it helps.

Gord

EdAndres
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby EdAndres » April 14th, 2005, 6:58 pm

All my Kaufman books on one shelf. All Marlo on another. Old rare cool on another( like 1st edition Shhh it's a secret). paperback shelf. asst hard back shelf. related arts shelf (gambling, juggling, comedy, ) por* in box under there .... at least this month. My book shelves are my happy rubik's cube.

:cool:
eddy

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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Guest » April 14th, 2005, 8:13 pm

Height of books and room on shelf

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magicam
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby magicam » April 14th, 2005, 8:20 pm

Needless to say, there are many ways to organize a library. I do so alphabetically by author, and keep non-English titles segregated by language.

Ultimately, I think you should organize your library in the manner which makes it easiest for you to lay your hands on something when the whim strikes you.

Clay

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MaxNY
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby MaxNY » April 15th, 2005, 6:02 pm

Walter Gibson had topics in rooms, or walls. There was a Mystery room, Joke wall, etc. The entire mansion was filled with books! As for me.. stuff I want to get into but probably never will, goes horizontal, that's about it!

Seth
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Seth » April 15th, 2005, 6:16 pm

A whole room...how did he keep track?

Which brings me to another question...Do any of you guys with the larger collections database your books? Any program recommendations?

It's not that i have a ton of books, just that i can't keep track of all of them.

Chris Aguilar
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Chris Aguilar » April 15th, 2005, 7:50 pm

I arrange them by how they smell.

Jacky Kahan
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Jacky Kahan » April 16th, 2005, 7:54 am

I heard about someone arranging his lybrary by color ... :D

Which brings me to another question...Do any of you guys with the larger collections database your books? Any program recommendations?
Seth, check out www.magicbooks.be there are about 3000 books available for research... and growing...every day...

Jacky,
www.magicbooks.be

Jerry Harrell
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Jerry Harrell » April 16th, 2005, 8:23 am

Seth, there is a long detailed thread in the Forum archives about databases. Do a search and I am sure you will find it. It really depends on how complex you want the info in your database to be. For me, Excel does the job fine for the thousand or so volumes I have, because it is a program I am already familiar with.

Seth
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Seth » April 16th, 2005, 1:14 pm

Thanks Jerry

Found it I think, for anyone else interested

http://geniimagazine.com/forum/cgi-bin/ ... 405#000006

Pepka
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Pepka » April 16th, 2005, 2:27 pm

I have my libray done by topic/title, rather than auther. For instance Richard's Almanac is under A, and Williamson's Wonders, by the same author, is under W. Apocalypse hardbounds are under A, but all of Harry Lorayne's books are under L. Vernon books are all together, even though they have a few different authors. And so on, and so forth, yada yada yada, etc........ad nauseam.

Bob Farmer
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Bob Farmer » April 16th, 2005, 5:27 pm

I have about 130 linear feet of magic books and magazines (6 shelves along two walls). There is no list of what's there and no database, but I can usually find anything I need rather quickly because I don't use any one system, but a combination. Here's how it works:

1. Magic books come first, followed by magic magazines (i.e., all the magazines are together).

2. The magazines are arranged alphabetically by title.

3. The magic books are arranged alphabetically in one of the following ways:

By title.
By subject (e.g. mentalism).
By author.
By magician.

So, if I'm looking for a book, first I check the title and see if it's there. If it isn't, I'll look under magician and then finally under subject.

Sometimes a book will start out filed by title, but then if the same magician writes several more books, I'll file it by magician.

All of these systems are integrated, so though in the books filed by title under "C" you might find CARD CONCEPTS, you'll also find a whole section on COINS.

Erik Hemming
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Erik Hemming » April 16th, 2005, 7:43 pm

I expect I'm a little off the norm, but here goes:

I have a shelf of "frequently consulted" books in my bedroom: Books of Wonder, D.V. Book of Magic, Greater Magic, Book of Secrets, Stars of Magic, Art of Astonishment, Ganson's Art of Close-Up Magic...the usual stuff, with some of my particular passions thrown in.

In my library, I have four bays of magic books. The primary organization is by format, then publisher, with some special collection of topics.

All unbound magazines alpha by title, then by date.

All the pamphlets, staple and comb-bound items are on one bay. These are usually alpha by author. Certain "one-shot" periodicals I have because of topic are on this shelf.

I have periodic "hot topics" that I get excited about and want to think about for a while: thimbles, billiard manipulation, stacks, pre-1900 historical books, etc. I have a shelf I reserve for what I'm jazzing on at the moment, right next to the couch in my library, so I can scramble through whatever is on my mind. These books are pulled from, then re-shelved into the larger organization.

The rest of the shelves are organized by publisher, then author. If there are multiple books by the same author on the same topic, I group them, and don't alphabetize the titles. It's a small enough collection and I'm familiar enough with what I have to not need a more rigid system. The publisher thing is a personal quirk having to do with how I, out of necessity, think about books.

I've partitioned a drive in my PC devoted to ebooks. I have the folders organized similar to to my physical organization. But with ebooks, I eschew the publisher issue. Except for Lybrary books, it's almost always the same as the author. I have periodicals in one folder, then in sub-folders by title. Then I have an "author" folder that has sub-folders categorized by author. My "current" shelf is whatever is on my PDA.

Regarding "programs". I've messed around with Excel and Access, and they work fine, if you can deal with really minor "programing" issues.

But I have a couple thousand books, not tens of thousands, so the database seems a little like overkill. I can't bring myself to sustain the effort. If you're a big-time collector, I can see the utility of Access or something similar. (If for no other reason than insurance purposes.)

But it's not me....

BTW, The Dewey system is REALLY unhelpful in dealing with most magic books. Don't bother. Library of Congress classfication is a little better...but not much...so I wouldn't bother with that, either.

Use what makes sense to you. They're your books....

Gordo

Bill Palmer
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Bill Palmer » April 20th, 2005, 10:00 pm

Leo Behnke's book The Conservation of Magic has a whole section devoted to organizing your library.

It's a good book to have for a number of reasons.
Bill Palmer, MIMC

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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Guest » April 27th, 2005, 8:11 pm

Seth,

My own library consists of a little over 9000 volumes not including magazine files. The antiquarian titles are grouped together alphabetically and most of the major authors are grouped together such as Hoffmann, Evans, Findlay, Goldston. The rest of the library is grouped by type of books such as pamplets, soft covers, hard covers, etc. Hope this helps.

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magicam
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby magicam » April 27th, 2005, 9:19 pm

Welcome to the Genii Forum, Ray. Nice to have a knowledgeable collector/bibliophile on board! Clay (aka a member of BAMCA and your partner in crime...)

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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Guest » April 28th, 2005, 7:12 am

Originally posted by Ray Ricard:
Seth,

My own library consists of a little over 9000 volumes not including magazine files. The antiquarian titles are grouped together alphabetically and most of the major authors are grouped together such as Hoffmann, Evans, Findlay, Goldston. The rest of the library is grouped by type of books such as pamplets, soft covers, hard covers, etc. Hope this helps.
Ray,
Are you serious 9,000 books , wow do I envy you. Any duplicates that you are selling ?
Rennie

Magiphile
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Magiphile » April 28th, 2005, 11:23 am

Ray:
You failed to tell everyone the Quality of your 9,000 books. There Quantity of books is amazing but, the Quality is even better....we're not even talking about rarity. I've seen a l;ot of libraries but, you really treat your books with love and care. I sometimes feel that you spend more money on rebinding and caring for your books that you do on buying new (or old) ones.
A GREAT library.
Magiphile

Randy DiMarco
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Randy DiMarco » April 28th, 2005, 11:33 am

I arrange my library by the Dewey Decimal System. However, since all magic books share the number 793.8 they are just thrown everywhere in my library.

Robert Allen
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Robert Allen » April 28th, 2005, 11:48 am

In his book "The Performance of Close-Up Magic" Eugene Burger writes that his collection of magic books occupies 34" of shelf space. That consists of 31 books, 5 of which are the colored books of mentalism. Of course Mr. Burger does not that he used to have more, and as he moved on he sold his older magic books. However I've always taken his story to imply that quality is more important than quality. More interesting is this quote:

"Books can be dangerous. They can become a way of avoiding practice and rehersal."

My books are arranged by height.

Bill Palmer
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Bill Palmer » April 28th, 2005, 6:04 pm

Originally posted by Ray Ricard:
Seth,

My own library consists of a little over 9000 volumes not including magazine files. The antiquarian titles are grouped together alphabetically and most of the major authors are grouped together such as Hoffmann, Evans, Findlay, Goldston. The rest of the library is grouped by type of books such as pamplets, soft covers, hard covers, etc. Hope this helps.
Ray:

If very many of them are the "wee books," then you may have to use TWO shoeboxes to house those books! ;)
Bill Palmer, MIMC

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Tabman
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Tabman » April 28th, 2005, 8:45 pm

My books are in piles. I have a five foot shelf started. I need to finish it. I was thinking about two 2.5 ft shelves but I see now that it must be one continuous five foot piece of lumber.

My goal when I got here was to collect up five feet of interesting and educational card books. I've been collecting them right along and have found most of them on the original list. I guess its time to find out if it measures out to five feet or how close.

-=tabman

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Richard Kaufman » April 28th, 2005, 9:12 pm

I do exactly what EdAndres wrote: I have most of them organized by either author (Lorayne, Garcia, Fulves) or artist (Vernon, Slydini). All the antiquarian books are together. All the historical books are together.
Used to have a lot more books, but winnowing down in middle age (nearing 50, you know!).
I currently have seven Ikea wide "Billy" book cases and my entire magic library fits in them. I used to know where every book was. When I lost the ability to find things, I knew there were too many books.
Subscribe today to Genii Magazine

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Dustin Stinett
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Re: Arranging your magic library

Postby Dustin Stinett » April 28th, 2005, 9:57 pm

I am well on my way to having my library organized just like Jay Marshalls.


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