Our family loves books!
I'm a master at stating the obvious.
The family library reached the point of requiring serious intervention in order to fully utilize the resources we had collected.
Not having a dedicated "library" like Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," we had to come up with a solution that would work with our space.
I needed a system that would allow me to find the books we needed, when we needed them. I don't remember for sure, but I think I did an online search for information and suggestions for organizational ideas.
I had never heard of LibraryThing.com before, but it came up and, after checking it out, I paid for a lifetime membership! (A whopping $25)
What is it, you ask?
It is an online database for books! You create an account, a very simple process, and then you can begin entering your books. I actually ordered a little USB scanner ($15) for the books that had bar codes. That way, you can scan it and all the information for that title is entered into your database. You'd be amazed how many facts are tied to that little bar code. It's like magic to have the author, illustrator, publisher, etc., just pop up on your screen. If you have a large number of books with bar codes, the price of the scanner is well worth it!
Many of our books are older and don't have bar codes. For those, you simply type in the ISBN or Library of Congress number, and the search will bring up your title. Sometimes there are multiple choices that come up for one number. In that case you locate the one that matches your volume and click on it. The information is added to your collection.
For the books that predated ISBN's and Library of Congress numbers, you have the option of manually entering all the information. In that case, you can enter as much or as little as you choose, whatever serves the purpose for which you need it.
Each entry also has the option of tagging your book. This is where it gets really good. For our purposes, I need to be able to locate all the books on a specific topic. As I entered each book, I tagged it with the topic or time period that I could later locate. I have a stack of index cards that have each tag number on it and the shelf location for that tag in our house.
Once you have your books entered, Library Thing allows you to search your data base in any number of ways. You could search by author, or by tag, or by title, etc.
There is no limit on the number of books you can enter. You could also use it for dvd's/blue rays, if you wanted. Anything you want to catalog or quantify can be entered in a system that works for what you need.
For those of us who have large libraries, the data base also serves as a record for insurance purposes, just in case.
Because our library was large (about 5000), the initial job of entering the books was enormous. Once that was behind us, however, it is so simple to maintain and add new volumes. When we bring home a new book, we enter the information and then shelve it according to our shelving system, and that's it. It's wonderful.
As a homeschooler, I was really frustrated keeping the resources organized and accessible so that they could be efficiently and easily accessed. I might know I had a book on a particular subject or time period, and then be unable to find it at a moment's notice when the kids' interest was piqued. It's not good to miss that window. Now, all I have to do is pull up our collection on Library Thing and search by title, author, or tag and then, according to that tag we know where to look for the book.
One more resource that might bless you: Library Thing
We take lots of road trips as a family. And always have. It was the cheapest way for a large family to see "the sights." With limited vacation time, and because we don't live close to landmarks or National Parks, there are usually many intensive days of driving to get where we are going.
But that keeps things interesting.
And provides infinite photo ops. We take advantage of those opportunities as often as possible so that we can preserve our memories and so that we can torture our children. It has been rumored that, because we are so efficient at making the most of every mile and moment, we can't even remember it all by the time we get home. It takes a while to decompress and debrief ourselves.
Those conversations are often filled with comments like,"Boy, I sure did like ____________ (fill in the blank with a landmark or activity)."
Response: "Was that on THIS trip?"
Seriously.
We have been known to drive in excess of 4600 miles during a 17 day trip. And that's with Kregg and I each driving a vehicle (since we don't have a vehicle big enough to hold all of us AND pull our home-on-wheels).
To preserve our memories, we take lots of pictures. That's my favorite souvenir. And our very favorite thing to do with our pictures is to make them into a photobook.
Disclaimer: Shutterfly has NO idea who I am. I don't receive a thing for saying any of this. I just like it when we find wonderful resources.
Having 72 gigs of pictures on my hard drive, I am concerned with backup. Just in case. So, before deleting pics from the memory cards, I back them up. It's best to not only put them on your hard drive, but somewhere else as well. An online site and an external hard drive are great. Then if something did happen to your computer, memory card, house, you don't lose them. That's what I always hear from people who have lost a house to a fire or something: they wish they could retrieve their pictures most of all their belongings.
Anyway, Shutterfly (and other sites, I'm sure) give you a free, unlimited account to store your digital photos. And, very importantly, Shutterfly doesn't compress your files. They store them in their original size and quality--just like they are on your camera. When printing pictures, or making photo books, you want the highest quality file you can have. Set your camera to a large file size so that your photos contain the most pixels possible. That's where the quality comes from. And, if you go to all that trouble to take large file pictures, you don't want them to be shrunken when they are stored.
I've made photo books on other sites, but Shutterfly is my favorite. And they are continually improving the options they offer, so it's only getting better. I love the idea of scrapbooking, but realistically, it will not work in my life. There's no room for all the supplies. There's no room to leave a project of that size out. And so most of my time for the project would be spent dragging everything out and then putting it up. With photo books on Shutterfly, I can open the project, work on it for a few minutes, and then click "Save." That's it! Then I can come back to it when I have a spare minute or two. It's perfect for me.
Everything is customizable, from the cover, to the size, to the font, to how many pages you need, to colors, and embellishments, and numbers of pictures per page, etc.
We like the hard photo covers, but there are all kinds of options for the front and back covers, as well as the spine.
The options for the innards are endless. There are templates for pages with any number of pictures.
You can choose different frames, different backgrounds, different places to put text boxes.
You can always find an arrangement that best showcases the pictures you want to use. You need to think about whether you need horizontal or vertical layouts, or a combination.
You can even use a picture as the background for other pictures (as on the left page). They also have "stickers" you can apply to the pages (like the Wet and Wild in the right corner).
There's also a way to make one picture span two pages. Now you really need a high quality file to blow it up this large. This book is 12" x 12".
I tend to use a lot of black backgrounds because it makes so many pictures "pop!"
They offer the option of allowing the website to fill your book for you, but I like to place my own pictures. They also offer "themes" for your book, which can come in handy. This one was a "travel theme," so they had already pre-selected backgrounds for that theme. You can use what they choose, or change them one at a time. I added the photo corners on these pages just because they looked cool with the backgrounds.
You can even put "stickers" on the back cover!
I made our photobook for the cruise that we just took yesterday. I have learned that it's best to make the book, and then wait until Shutterfly runs a special. When you sign up for your free account, they will periodically send you emails with coupons or specials. When you have your book completed and saved, you can simply wait for the next special they run. Through yesterday, they had free shipping on orders over $30, plus 1/2 off photo books, plus 1/2 off additional pages! So I was HIGHLY motivated to make the entire book yesterday!! I worked on it here and there between grading papers and reading to the kids. Thankfully, I had already uploaded all the pictures from our trip to their site and so they were there, waiting for me. I finished the book last night and it will be here in a few days. It's so exciting! And so easy!!
When you travel in herds, like we do, it's fun to order extras--like for Grandma, and Grandpa, or your married children. Especially when they have a BIG sale. Hope Grandma and Hannah don't read this, or they won't be surprised.
Anyway, you get the idea: I'M A FAN!! And it fits right in with intentionally preserving the heritage of our family. Your finished projects are saved on their site, just like your photos. So if, in the future, one of the kids wants a copy of one of the books for their family, all I have to do is go back and order another one. Could it be any better?!
Just thought someone might need to know all of this. :)
Okay, I have NO idea whether this will "fly," but I thought it would be fun to try and start a new "link-up" for "Things We Love." I think it would be so wonderful to see what you come up with to share! It could be anything! Let's see what happens.
