Labels for LifeLabels for Life will give tips for organizing your life, home and office.

Book lovers love books until it comes to a time when there are books, books, books all over the place and it becomes evident that other forces need to come into play. The book lover now needs to choose from his books. Some will stay and some will have to go.

The book lover needs to make good habits right from the start. S/He needs to think twice before s/he buys once. Only those books need to be bought that s/he absolutely positively cannot do without.

That’s what libraries are for. Libraries have reading rooms. Read as much as you can there. Bring home only the ones you will read and read right through.

Now comes the task of sorting out your books. Collect the books from all nooks and crannies of your home. Establish a place for your books. You may have a few shelves or ceiling to floor bookcases.

Arrange your books on the shelves in groups. The non-fiction can be clustered together. Certain shelves can display your bestseller collections. Once you have a designated spot for your books you will tend to return them to those spots.

These days there are many book trading sites on the net. Some of these are Bookmooch, PaperBackSwap, TitleTrader, FrugalReader etc. These become ideal for finding fresh reading and lovingly disposing of books from your collection as well.

Assign an area for the books that you borrow from the library or friends. You might want to label these “Books in Rotation”.  These books do not have a permanent spot among your collection, but still have a designated area just for them.

Periodically sort through your collection. You might want to give your books new homes. There are always hospitals, local schools, libraries, shelters etc. who take book donations. There are many bookshops that also take old books. Other places one might consider are books for soldiers (www.booksforsoldiers.com), the international book project (www.intlbookproject.org/), (www.writeaprisoner.com/books-behind-bars/). Each library posts its own wish list. So you might want to take that into consideration.

De-clutter your own living space and bring reading into other deserving lives. Such a generous thought with the holidays fast approaching.

One final thought, you may want to affix custom stickers with your personal information so books loaned out find their way home.

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