Saturday, May 19, 2007

Book Cataloging Project Proceeds Apace

My book cataloging project has had a few stops and starts but is now moving along expediently. I have 888 books cataloged and figure I am probably about 2/3 done with the project.

It was helped along considerably by our school district's surplus supplies and furniture sale a few weeks ago. It was held in the old middle school gym and was very well advertised, yet somehow very poorly attended. I suspect it was because there were two collectible/estate auctions the very same day within a few miles' radius. Anyway, prices were very, very low. I doubt the school district probably even covered the cost of the auctioneer.

Among other things, I bought an old wooden bookcase measuring 9 feet long by 3 feet high, with adjustable shelves, for a dollar. It fits beautifully right under the windows of one end of my front porch. I tell you, it's much more fun to debox books, catalog them and place them on new bookshelves than it is to put them back into their giant Rubbermaid tubs to go back into dark, cold, sad storage!

I also figured out a more efficient way to enter books into my Collectorz software, and that is also helping.

Then, to top it all off, Tuesday morning I got a phone call from one of the custodians at the school district asking me if I wanted any more shelves. Some that had sold had never been claimed, and they needed to get them moved out. DID I WANT MORE BOOKSHELVES? Of course I did! To make things even nicer, he was on his way to New Albin with the truck, and he offered to drop them off at my house. When he arrived, he had a long low set of shelves that goes neatly on the OTHER end of the front porch, plus a not-so-long-but-taller set that I put on the back porch.

It's been a long time since I had empty space on any bookshelves around here, but I think it may actually be the case here when I get everything out and deboxed. Of course this means that I get to buy more books. Right?

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