- Today, I'm talking with Karen Smith
about how she organizes her home library.
(gentle music)
Welcome to The Simply Charlotte Mason Podcast.
I'm Sonya Shafer.
In a previous episode,
I talked with Laura Pitney
about how we organize our home libraries.
And I mentioned in that episode
that I also wanted to talk to Karen Smith
because she has a larger library
than Laura or I do.
So, today, that's what we're going to do
on this podcast.
Welcome, Karen.
Thanks so much- - Thank you.
- for being willing to share with us
about your library.
I think yours is probably...
if you put Laura's and mine together,
it might be close to your size library.
How many books do you have now?
- Over 3,000.
- Okay, and your house is not huge.
- No, but,
not tiny either.
- Well, last time I was there,
you had bookshelves on pretty much
any empty wall space there was.
- Yes.
- And you had it around the railing of the stairs
to your basement.
- Yes.
- Where else have you- - To the kitchen.
- tucked these bookshelves?
- They're in the living room,
the kitchen, the front room,
and in all the bedrooms.
So, none in the bathrooms-
- Yet.
- It's a little moist in there.
- Yeah, okay. (both laughing)
- I don't want to ruin the books.
- That is true,
you have to be careful of it.
And you don't have those double stacked at all?
- No, I do not.
- Okay.
How do you organize it?
How do you keep track?
I assume you know what books you have
and when you want to find one,
you know right where to go to get it.
- Mostly.
If I don't know if I have it
or where to get it,
then I check my app
that has all of my library on it.
- All right, give.
What's this magic app?
- It's called Bookpedia,
is the software
and then the app for like your phone or something
is called Pocketpedia.
And so, it keeps a record of all the books I have.
And, thankfully, my daughter has taken the time
to enter every single one-
- Bless her.
- and the condition and the description of them,
and that type of thing.
But this software also has a feature
that if a friend borrows a book,
you can check it out in their name,
and then you have a record of who has your books.
- Oh, that is so helpful.
- It is helpful.
- Then you can track it down
if it doesn't come back- - Yes.
- in a nice way. - Yes.
And you know who has them
so you know who to ask.
You know where that book went. - Yes, yes.
- Yeah.
And it also keeps me from buying duplicates
of what I already have at home.
- Well, we're not going to talk about that
because we've all done that, you know,
and we probably still do.
But because you can access this information then
on your phone-
- Yes.
- you've got it
at all the used book sales- - With me.
- everywhere you go.
- Yes.
- Oh, how nice.
All right, so that's how you keep track
of what you have. - Yes.
- I assume you don't have any,
like, shelf locations in that software,
right?
It's just-
- I don't think so, no.
- Okay, so, how do you keep track of where it is?
How do you organize the shelves?
- I have some more broad categories.
I have picture books
and then books that would be longer picture books
or short stories that would be for young children,
so those have a section.
Science materials, nature type things,
have a section.
- I assume that's a large section for you.
- Yes and growing.
(Sonya laughing)
- Good.
We appreciate that.
All the books that you review
in science for us, yes. - Yes.
History has more than one section.
So, I have sections for series of history books,
like the Landmark books,
and there are others out there.
And so, those books are grouped together
and they're in chronological order.
And then general history books are put together
in chronological order.
So, all my Ancient Egypt books are together,
Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome,
and so forth, through history.
I have a biography section
and then, of course,
fiction is the other section I have.
And one of my sons really likes fairytales,
so we have a fairytale section too
because we have many fairytale books.
- The biography section,
is that chronological or last name of author?
I'm sorry, last name of person
being told about.
- That's by person. - Is it in
alphabetical order?
- That's by person.
- That is by person.
Okay, great, great.
- Science is done by topic.
So, any books on insects are together.
And if I have books on bees and ants,
and things like that,
those are all grouped together, also,
within the insect category.
So, that type of thing.
Weather books are together,
geology books are together.
So, it's easy to go to a section
and I can find what I need.
- Now, when your kids were younger
and you had certain books you were doing for school,
did you keep those in a separate place
where the kids would not have access to them?
Or how did you work that with your shelves?
Was everything on the shelves fair game for them?
How did that go? - Yes.
Everything on the shelves was fair game.
When we were doing a certain time period for history,
I would pull the books
that we wanted to read for school time.
And those went on a shelf
that was accessible to our school area.
And then we just worked our way through those.
And the kids didn't read those
outside of school time,
at that time.
But any other book on the shelf
was free for them to read
whenever they wanted to.
- So, you had pre-read all of those books
before you put them on the shelf?
- No.
(Karen laughing)
Many of them, we got at library book sales
and they looked like good books.
And when the books are costing you 25 or 50 cents,
you take a chance on them.
And later, you read them
and sometimes you find good gems,
and sometimes you find ones
that you no longer want in your library
and you get rid of it.
- How did you handle then
making those available to the kids
when you weren't sure what was in there?
I realize we're getting off the topic of organizing now,
but these are questions we all ask each other.
- I trusted my children to tell me
if there was something that was inappropriate
or if the story was not
as well-written as we would have liked.
And I trusted their judgment.
They would come to me and say,
"Mom, there's a problem with this book."
And I made sure that there wasn't anything
that was very inappropriate in the books.
But my children...
You know, it's that relationship you have
with your children that
you know they're going to come to you
when there's something that isn't right.
So, we had that.
- Now, you also gave books to the kids as gifts
over the years, right? - Yes.
- How did you keep track of
which ones belonged to them
and which ones belonged to you
now that the kids are out of the house?
- I actually have no idea.
- Okay.
(both laughing)
- There are certain authors that I know
as they got into the teen years,
those are ones that they desired
and we bought for them.
But within a series,
one child might own one book
and another child might own another book.
And I figured they can work that out on their own
if they want to take those out of my library.
- And that will just free up more room on the shelf-
- Oh, definitely. - for you to do more.
Now, where all do you go to collect these gems,
the books that you have?
- Well, there's always
bookstores where you buy them new,
and sometimes that's what I do
if there's one that I really want,
I'll do that.
Library book sales are a great place to go.
Usually, libraries are clearing their shelves of books
that you want
and they no longer want. - Yes, sadly.
- And they're willing to let them go.
For children's books, even chapter books,
you can get for 25, 50 cents,
maybe a dollar each,
which is good prices.
And they're usually hardcover books.
Used booksellers are another place to go.
That's a lot of where I get mine now
because now I'm no longer building my library
where I'm just finding anything I can.
Now, I'm buying books by certain authors
or to fill out certain series of books
that I'm missing some.
Or maybe upgrading from paperback copies
to hardcover copies.
So, used book sellers are good for that.
- Yes, and we see them often at homeschool conventions-
- Yes. - in the exhibit hall.
In fact, we often, you know,
sneak out of our booth and say,
we'll be back later-
- That's right. - We're going to the
used book booth.
(both laughing)
- I'll be in the used book booth
if you need me!
- That's right, yes.
It's a great place to go.
- Yes.
- What advice would you have for parents
who are collecting books
or are trying to decide
whether it's worth the investment
of purchasing books
and keeping them on hand?
Any words of encouragement to them?
- If you have the room,
I know some have very small houses
or they live in apartments,
and they don't really have room for the bookshelves,
but you can still buy some books that are favorites,
those old friends that you like to keep visiting,
especially your children.
I remember as a child really liking certain books
and I would reread those
over and over and over again
because they had become my friends,
and I wanted to go and visit those characters again.
And I still do that as an adult,
just not as much as I did as a kid,
but there are still books
that I want those on my shelf
because someday I want to revisit those friends.
- And I want to introduce them to my grandchildren.
- Yes.
- And have that privilege. - Yes.
- So, that's, you know,
a whole extension of the homeschooling world now
that we are in the grandparents stage.
- And in the case of picture books,
I have many picture books
and my kids are all adults,
but a good picture book is good at any age.
And when the grandkids do come visit,
they have books available to them.
But we also have young families over
and having those picture books
has been a lifesaver, sometimes.
The kids are drawn to those
and they like to take the books off the shelf.
And if they can't read,
they like to look at the pictures
or they'll sit down and read them, too.
- And I know you and Doug
do a lot of mentoring of other families
who want to get into homeschooling,
and having them over to your home
and being able to pull a living book off the shelf
and say,
this is a living book. - Yes, yes.
- I'm sure that has been so convenient.
- Yes, and even families
that are just getting started with homeschooling,
I freely lend my books to them
so that they don't have to hunt them down on their own.
Mostly, they're just taking up shelf space right now
in my home,
and so, I like to help other families in that way too.
- And you can use your app to keep track of who has it.
- That's right.
- That's wonderful, great.
Thanks so much for sharing with everybody
about your library, Karen.
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