“This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge.” –Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb), Dragnet
These are the bookshelves, in the south suburbs of Chicago. I own them. I read the books.
This long and skinny bookcase is the “command center.” (more…)
It is a problem that every book lover must eventually face. You are moving and your collection of books weighs more than your bed, your desk, and your clothes combined. You can’t possibly take them all with you, so which ones get put in a box marked “BOOKS” and which ones get left behind?
Read on to find the solution to this dilemma…
Foreman High School Library is located in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
It is my daytime library and somewhat of an underground library for archives on the Belmont Cragin neighborhood.
The building’s construction dates back to 1928. This door was intended to be an access point for the community to use the library during non-school hours since there was no library branch in the neighborhood until the 1950s. We use it as an emergency exit.
Find out what lies beyond the exit…
Intuit’s Study Center is a non-circulating research library that houses a one-of-a-kind collection of materials on outsider, intuitive, folk and craft art, artists and art organizations.
We have everything from books, magazines, slides, videos, DVDs, CDs, tape cassettes, ephemera and microfilm. Below is a sampling of a few of my favorite items from our special collections.
If you’re interested in viewing a documentary, conducting research, or just browsing our shelves, please schedule an appointment—we’d love to have you!
- Thea Liberty Nichols
The Robert A. Roth Study Center at Intuit
756 N. Milwaukee Avenue,
Chicago, IL 60622
(phone) 312.243.9088
Fitting a literary person’s book collection into a condo barely larger than a Airstream camper is certainly a challenge. It requires a lot of planning and systematic organization… neither of which I actually employ. Instead, most of my books were unpacked and put away by my friend who used to work at Borders, where they train you to shelve books in little chunky groupings of uniform size so they look cute! But since we tend to visualize an object when we search for it, it works, in a John Cusack High Fidelity sort of way. They’ve migrated and shuffled themselves a lot since then, but I still manage to find what I’m looking for like at least 85% if the time. That’s a good solid “B” average.
My house is too teeny to shoot this straight-on. See "airstream camper" above.
Notice the bottom shelf is where i stick all the copies of Better Homes & Gardens I get in the mail and never read, because my grandma, bless her heart, subscribed me and I can't throw them away.
random stacks that slowly take over all available surfaces in my house!
more random stacks. yes, it's MY Twilight. Shut up.
Our one-bedroom, two-writer apartment has books on all surfaces. If there’s a system, maybe it’s emotional proximity.
We don’t alphabetize (”I always know exactly where each book is!”). But we verticalize.
Favorites stay up where they’re visible (Aww, Freckles!!). The books at the tops of the stacks are the most recently worked on.
Denise Dooley is interested in unconventional writing-training and presently developing a writers’ group at the Chicago Underground Library. Her poetry and fiction appeared recently in Court Green, Shampoo, Two With Water, and online at http://tacks.freehostia.com.
My books are split between two categories:
1. Comics & comics-related books
2. Everything else
Though a third category is starting to develop - a healthy collection of zines! - I would like to show you my comics.
I’m in the process of cataloging them all on librarything.com and have them tagged into four main categories:
Minicomics - usually photocopied and hand-bound comics smaller than a Letter-sized sheet of paper.
Graphic Novels - you know, those big fat volumes, that people think make comics a legitimate form of literature.
Trade Paper Backs (of TPB) - soft cover comics, usually not as voluminous as a graphic novel, often collecting individual comic book issues into a single story arch.
Comic Book - aka, a “floppy” it’s the traditional comic book you pick up from a spinner rack.
Other major tags include:
Anthology - collection of comics by various artists
Collection - collection of comics by a single artist or team that doesn’t have a main story arch running through each story.
My bedroom, though cold and too big for my liking, has built-in bookshelves which is pretty awesome. I decided this would be the best place for my comics collection. Here are some pictures:
This is a full view of my comics. The shelf also holds paper for my own comic-making (top shelf), gewgaw (middle shelf), and random detritus floating around the shelves. My comics are organized alphabetically by author. It used to be organized by size, due to previous shelf restrictions (my non-comic books live on the wooden bookshelf that used to house my comics). Because so many of my comics are self-published, they’re often very different sizes, ranging anywhere from 1/4″ x 1/4″ to 11 x 17.” Organizing by size makes the row physically more stable, as large books aren’t leaning over small books, but it makes finding items difficult, unless you remember what size the comic was. As you can see the top shelf is in complete disarray, but that’s my A-J shelf which I’m almost done cataloging.
Here’s my K-Q shelf. Along with a mug of water, and some chocolate. Ugh, how embarrassing.
My R-Z shelf also houses my anthologies section. My Anthologies are alphabetized by title, this way, anthologies with multiple volumes (like Papercutter, or Awesome) can stay together regardless of primary author or editor.
Finally, my to-read row, which includes mostly comics, but also zines, as well as prose & poetry books.
Neil Brideau is a CUL volunteer, makes comics, and works at Quimby’s Bookstore. He and his friends are organizing the first ever Chicago Zine Fest, March 12-13, 2010. You can attend the open planning meeting on January 30th, 11:30 a.m., at the Logan Square Library, 3030 W Fullerton Ave., a short walk from either the Blue Line Logan Square station or California station.
As some of you may know, we have moved. In the process of all those myriad moves from Nell’s apartment to the basement of Mojoe’s Café Lounge (which literally made us underground), to the dusty innards of the Butcher Shop studios, to the Congress Theater space, we have gained much insight into moving and shelving. Now safely ensconced in a space that just feels good and with plenty of room to expand and hold gatherings, a few of us had thoughts about the members who have come and gone and in particular those who have stayed for the long run. What’s on their bookshelf and what would that bookshelf say about the personality of that individual?
From that session of wondering, we thought how great would that be to introduce the awesome members of the Chicago Underground Library through their bookshelves? And here to start it is Nell Taylor who was probably also pondering the depths of her book stacks when she and her partner, Emerson Dameron, hit upon the great idea of the Chicago Underground Library:
Nell’s collection of books and pigs
My books are organized in two bookcases. The red bookcase has mostly architecture and comics and ceramic pigs. The dark wood bookcase has mostly fiction, architecture, urban planning, media criticism, outdated etiquette books and ceramic walruses. Books are shelved in descending order by height so that I can stick more books on top of them.
I have a partial LibraryThing catalog that maxes out at 200 because I’m cheap and haven’t opened a paid account. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Nell_Taylor
- Nell Taylor
