Books, books, books

My husband and I have had a carpenter over these past several days to help us build new shelving and storage units. But no matter how many new shelves we've had built, it seems like we still can't solve our top problem: WHERE TO PUT ALL OUR BOOKS?

I'm startled that I can't find any articles on the web on academicians and their book storage problems, because I know from conversations with my colleagues that it's a problem many of us have.

One of my older colleagues married a fellow-academic, and every hallway of their house is lined with bookshelves. Yet their living room still has stacks of books that seem not to be able to find a home.

Another colleague married a lawyer. He recently bought some new shelves for his house. When I visited his house, however, the number of books on his new shelves was so high that the shelves were sagging in the middle.

I didn't marry an academic, but I married a bookworm who buys books more frequently than I do. And we simply can't seem to find the space to put all our books!

We've resorted to the terrible two-rows-of-books "solution" on most of our bookshelves. We have books under the bed and in cabinets ... but we still have books stacked on our desks and night tables! I've brought as many books as I can to my office cubicle, but I have exactly the same problem at the office as well: the shelf on my carrel has already fallen a few times because of the weight of books, and I already have books in boxes under my desk. Every year, I go through my books to see what I can give away, but it isn't easy--reading books is how I make a living and unlike books-for-leisure which you can read often read once and toss, most of my academic books are ones I need to keep as reference for current and future projects.

If any academicians or bookworms out there have thought of solutions to their book storage problems, please share them with us. Meanwhile, Mike and I seriously thinking of getting an Amazon Kindle to make some kind of a dent on our book storage problems.