So I have been neglectful of my blog again, but you know me by now, I always return. January has been most exceedingly busy. Family visiting for the first week, then a week to recover, then Craft Napa, then two weeks to recover. And I'm now starting to work on projects related to my Craft Napa classes, as I have vowed not to let any newly acquired skills go stagnant this time.
But, first, a special project that I started towards the end of December: The Cataloging of the Craft Books. So important it deserves caps and bold and italics and underlining all at once.
It should even get a larger font of its own:
The Cataloging of the Craft Books!!!
Because I have been wanting to do this for years and just not found the right vehicle. I no longer have access to my trusty database, Filemaker, and, while I could buy it, or use a cloud version, I wanted something a bit more accessible in case I lost access again. Then I tried LibBib, an online library cataloging site, but it wouldn't let me choose my categories and if I have a duplicate entry, it would flash a little message for a few seconds and that was it. If I was busy typing, I would completely miss it, and a significant reason for my cataloging was to find the duplicates. Because I tend to buy things on sale at Half Price Books, and it's very easy to pick up the same book twice this way. Also I have been rescuing craft books from the Recycling Center, knowing they were duplicates, not wanting them to get tossed into the giant bin where all knowledge is compressed and rendered unusable.
I don't have Excel on my Mac, and again, it's the kind of software that could easily become inaccessible. Flashcard Machine is excellent for vocabulary study, but only allows two fields. There are some other studying programs out there, but each seems to have it's own set of complications and lack of flexibility. Then I realized that I had the simplest, and most flexible, solution at hand: my Mac has Numbers installed. All Macs do. And, while I used to hate it at work, because people in other offices would send me complex spreadsheets with formulas embedded in them and my pre-installed Numbers would eat them up without permission and spit them out sans formulas. But now it doesn't matter. Nobody is sending me stuff I have to act upon in spreadsheet form. I can get Numbers to add all the columns I need. It has check boxes, (clumsy) pull down menus, will offer suggestions based on anything that has ever appeared in a column (good for duplicate detection). It's sleek, doesn't take up too much space, and will eventually go up on Google docs so I can access it from anywhere.
So here I am, on something like book 650. I have found quite a few duplicates, at which point I note on my database that I have more than one and I stack the duplicate to be given away. Each bookcase has a number and a set of shelf letters. Though even once I have listed a book, it can be very difficult to find it again. The spines just seem to melt into each other. Still, I'm way better off than I was. I am giving each book some categories: craft type (embroidery, weaving, paper making) and book type (dictionary, technique mastery, history, project book, gallery, etc.). I describe the book twice (this needs consolidating, I really should have a sub category for things like embroidery and quilting. I am loosely following my Pinterest categories. Consolidation of information, yay!
Here is something I am proud of: I took a photo of my stacked books beside my open computer. In order to get the books to show, I had to let the computer screen white out. In order to show the computer screen the books became too dark. So I took the two photos below and patched them together using the layers feature on my cell phone, erasing the whited out computer version with the good version showing through from behind, to get the version that shows at the top of this post.
One other thing I'm doing is rating my books on a scale of one to five. I am forcing myself to admit that I have a significant number of #2 books (I've never actually awarded a #1, 1 being lowest regard and 5 being highest praise). I tend to book inflation. But it is starting to give me a picture of what I could get rid of without ever missing it. I love the idea of maintaining a large library of craft books, but even libraries have discards. It also reminds me of some excellent books that I have, the ones that I rate a 5 and run my hands over lovingly before returning them to the bookshelf.
Watch out for me, in another mood I could revert to "keep them all, every last one, no matter how poorly written and fuzzily illustrated, even if I hate every single project, there must be SOME useful information in every book." We shall see how I feel when I have all of them catalogued. Right now they tower halfway up to the ceiling in one place, and I will not be able to get rid of enough duplicates to fully fix this. My cataloging has one excellent benefit: I am now doing my little 5 point quality check on any craft book I look at, before I actually buy it or haul it home from recycling. And thinking of that towering pile. And how nobody in the household will actually ever want most of these books but me.
Onward and upward, I have a lot more postings to catch up with, both Craft Napa and hikes.
No comments:
Post a Comment