working library – Madam Mayo

Working with a Working Library: Kuddelmuddel

This blog posts every Monday. Starting this year, every fourth Monday, except when not, is a Q & A with another writer. This week not.

As you dear, faithful, writerly readers know, I have been at work on the Far West Texas book. One of the individuals who appears and reappears throughout the narrative is Lt. John Bigelow, Jr. An officer in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry in the late 19th century, Bigelow had an illustrious father and his own impressive body of work in military strategy and tactics, in many ways anticipating the industrial-level wars of the twentieth century. So, having done a small Himalaya of reading on those Bigelows and the Tenth Cavalry, last fall at the conference at the Center for Big Bend Studies, I presented a paper on Lt. Bigelow, expecting to polish it up into publishable form lickety-split. Ha! It’s still not finished, but at least the draft is, and I submitted it. Wish me luck.

In the meantime, herewith, a few lessons learned about working with a working library.

I’m several decades and several published books down the pike now that I pause here, en blog, to confess that I never fully appreciated what was involved with writing a book that necessitated a working library. I just sort of accumulated whatever books I needed, or thought I might need, willynilly, clearing bookshelf space, catch as catch can. Things got rather pile-y, shall we say, and sometimes I wasted good working mornings just hunting for things. I never fully appreciated how unwieldly some of these working libraries can grow– and grow as, in many cases, they rightfully must.

Some of my working libraries took up only a few shelves, for example, the reading for my anthology Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. The one for my Baja California book, Miraculous Air, took up an entire wall, floor to ceiling, and the working library for my novel on Mexico’s Second Empire almost twice as much space. Ditto my recent book on Madero and metaphysical religion. And… drumroll… most especially the one I am using now on Far West Texas. The Texasbibliothek, as I call it, now hogs and camels and elephants and Macktrucks an entire room.

You may wonder, why can’t I just borrow books from my local library? Answer, Part I: I don’t have a relevant library nearby. Part II: When I am writing I often need to have several different books at-hand; many libraries will not lend out so many books at once, nor bring out so many volumes to a reading room. (But yes, I have consulted books in libraries, and in archival collections.) As I worked on that Baja California book, the Second Empire novel, and the one on the Mexican Revolution, I often had five or ten or even as many as, say, fifteen books open on my desk… such is the Kuddelmuddel of my process.

So… for the types of books I was and am writing, this means having a budget– a realistic budget– for buying books. University press hardcovers can be, ouch. To save money, many a time I bought an ex-library edition off of www.abebooks.com— which for used books is, in my experience, more reliable than amazon or ebay. And for collectible editions, I would advise steering way clear of amazon and ebay because all sorts of sellers on there have no clue what a first edition is or how to accurately describe a book’s condition. Again, abebooks.com is good and better yet sellers who are members in good standing of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America. An occupational danger is that you can get a jones for collecting, and start buying first editions. But that’s another blog post. I used to buy Italian shoes, let me put it that way.

As for organizing these working libraries, I posted previously about that here. Indeed, I got this current working library, my Texasbibliothek, into such superb shape that, as I was pulling out various titles for this paper on Lt. Bigelow, I had a little fiesta of self-congratulation every single time.

And reshelving the books? Something I do now with this Texasbibliothek that I have never done before– and I am shaking my head that it had not occurred to me sooner– is to tuck into each book a bookmark with its category.

UPDATE: See my November 11, 2019 post “A Working Library” for more about using bookmarks. My technique has advanced!

Making individual bookmarks with the categories noted might seem more trouble than it’s worth, but the challenge is, many books could go into more than one category, and if I have to remember or decide anew which one it is each time I reshelve it, well…. then… unshelved books tend to start piling up and sprawling into big, giant, King-Kong-scale Kuddelmuddel!

Decluttering? Indeed I do declutter. However, for some subjects, as in these working libraries, the collections in themselves have significant cultural / scholarly value; they should not be broken up. One day I will find them a good home.

What is Kuddelmuddel?

Not to be confused with Kugel Mugel.

Q & A: Lynn Downey “Research Must Serve the Writer, Not the Other Way Around”

On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises

This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone (Plus an App Evaluation Flowchart to Tailor-Make Your Own)

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.

On Organizing (and Twice Moving) a Working Library: Ten Lessons Learned of Late with the Texas Bibliothek

The Texas Bibliothek, Ready to Ship. Yes, it is big. Yes, I devour books like a ravenous owl. Yes, this is my process. I accumulated similar-sized working libraries in writing some of my other books, e.g., Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California (2002); The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire (2009); and Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution (2014).

File this post under Future Reminder to Take My Own Advice, and if some or all of these ideas also work for you, gentle reader, verily I say unto you: Wunderbar!

Late last September, having finally rearranged and set up my working library in my new office in Mexico City– the work in question being a book on Far West Texas— I had to pack it all back up again and ship it across the Atlantic. (Why? Well, that’s a novel I’m not going to write, both literally and figuratively).

Now that I’ve got my Texas books resettled on their second set of new shelves in less than six months, I’m ready to take on 2018! But whew, I’ve got biceps after this job for a Hercules. The thirty-eight boxes of books comprising what I now call the Texas Bibliothek– I have landed in German-speaking Switzerland– arrived in mid-January. And a couple weeks later, every tome and paperback and pamphlet and back-issue of Cenizo Journal is in place, and I can carry my bike over head! I could scoop up and toss dessicated Christmas trees, small donkeys and their Schmutzlis out windows, too, should I take a notion!

ON ORGANIZING (AND TWICE MOVING) A WORKING LIBRARY:
Ten Lessons Learned of Late with the Texas Bibliothek

1. Organize the books by topic– not as a librarian would recommend, but as your working writer’s mind finds most apt.

After all, you’re the one who will be using these books, not the general public. And even in a fairly substantial working library, such as this one, there are not enough books to justify the bothernation of cataloging and labeling each and every title.

If you have more than 50 books and if you do not organize them in some reasonably reasonable way, why don’t you just open your front door and let your dogs wander out and then you can go looking for them on the freeway at four a.m., that might be more fun!

2. If any category has more than 30-40 books, create a new subcategory.

Because trying to keep books in alphabetic order, whether by author or by title, makes me feel dehydrated, RRRRRR.

3. Label categories of books with large, easy-to-read lettering.

Because if you’re a working writer, like me you’re probably near-sighted…

Funny how book designers always have such unique ideas about colors and font sizes and typefaces…. In other words, I don’t want to have to look at the visual clutter of those spines to try to figure out what this bunch is about; I let that BIG FAT LABEL tell me.

If you do not want to make labels, why don’t you peel the labels off all the jars and cans in your pantry, mix ’em up, and then try to find which one is the dog food and which one the canned pumpkin? That would be a mile more hilarious.

4. When moving, before touching anything, take photos of the whole shebang.

I do not have early onset dementia, but boy howdy, moving house sometimes makes me feel as if I do. (Did I used to have a working library? Was I working on a book? What day is it? Is Ikea still open?)

5. Then, before even touching those books, take a tape measure and write down the inches of shelf space required for each and every category.

I suspect that these things are in cahoots with pens and umbrellas.

A tape measure!

I realize this may sound very OCD.

But three moves ago, it did not occur to me to do this with my working collection on Mexico’s Second Empire / French Intervention, for my then recently-published book, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. In the rush of moving I allowed the moving company crew to pack the books, willynilly-fefifo-rama-chillydilly, and then, on arrival, lacking space, never mind bookshelf space, and so having to leave that particular library in a half-unpacked, unsorted chaos, for the next few years more correspondence and related research was bottlenecked than I want to think about. (That library now has its home in Mexico City– that would be another blog post.)

The main thing is, you want to be certain you actually have the bookshelf space you need plus ample wiggle room for each category before you start packing– and then double check the available bookshelf space again before you start unpacking.

And never, ever let anyone else pack them.

Sounds obvious. Alas, for me, three moves ago, it was not.

Yeah, “Literary Nuns!” Note upper right-hand corner.

6. Save those neatly made shelf labels to reattach to the new shelves, and also label– with mammoth, easy-to-read fonts– each and every box.

Geology, Energy, Box 1 corresponded to category 40,
requiring 17 inches of shelf space.

7. Number each box, e.g., 1 of 32; 2 of 32, etc.

These can be cross-referenced with the master list of categories, which has the measurements.

8. Don’t be stingy with boxes!!

For moving books I prefer the so-called banker’s boxes with punch-out holes for handles. Banker’s boxes are large enough to take a heaping helping of books, and the handles make them easy to carry, however the weight of a book-filled banker’s box remains within the range of what I, a 50-something female whose daily mainly workout consists of walking two pugs, and, la-de-da, whatever biking and yoga, can easily haul up or down a staircase.

Yes, you could snag a batch of free boxes at the grocery store, and yes, you probably could, as I certainly could, lift bigger boxes with double the number of books in them– and most men can haul a stack of two or even three bigger boxes at a time. However, whatever the upper-body strength you have and shape you are in, when you are moving house, unless you for some reason enjoy showering hundreds of dollars on, say, your chiropractor’s vacation home, lifting huge, ultra-heavy, and unwieldy boxes is penny wise and dollar dumb. Ox dumb.

Goodie for me, I learned this lesson three moves ago, and I had an excellent chiropractor.

9. Take photos of the boxes, labels included.

Because you never know! Seems I have good moving juju. Knock on wood for next time!

On reshelving day, gather together before commencing:

Papertowels
Cleaning spray for the shelves (they will be dusty)
Garbage bag
Tape
Scissors (to trim off old bits of tape, etc.)
Measuring tape!!!!!!!!!!
Step stool or small ladder
Water and snack
iPad with audiobooks and/or podcasts and/or dance music
P.S. History nerds podcast alert! Check out Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World.

If you are missing any one of these items, you will probably have to interrupt whatever you are doing to go get it, and then in, say, the kitchen, because you have Moving on the Brain, you will be distracted by some zombie command from the dusty ethers such as, I must now go to Ikea to buy garbage bags and whatnotsy whatnots…

Meanwhile, dagnabbit, people just won’t stop writing books on Texas!! Two more, post-move, essential additions to the Texas Bibliothek:

Regular Army O! Soldiering on the Western Frontier, 1861-1891
By Douglas C. McChristian

The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
by Peter Cozzens

Wish me luck, gentle reader. I aim to finish my book on Far West Texas this year. By the way, I host an associated 24 podcast series, “Marfa Mondays,” which is woefully behind schedule because of these moves, but soon to resume. I invite you to listen in anytime to the 20 podcasts posted so far.

P.S. Using the free blogger platform, I also maintain an online working library of out-of-copyright (now in the public domain, mainly linked to archive.org) Texas books— books which I could not or did not want to attempt to purchase but would like to be able to consult at my leisure. It includes a number of titles that might appear bizarrely out of place (one is on Massachusetts, for example)– but after all, this is not for the general public, but a working library in service of my book in-progress. I mention this because perhaps you might find it of use to create such an online library for your own purposes.

P.P.S. For those wondering, what is my take on ebooks? First of all, I delightedly sell them! And yes, I have bought some, and as far as the Texas book research goes, when I need a book urgently and/or the paper edition is unavailable or expensive, I have been known to download a Kindle or four– or, as above-mentioned, download out-of-copyright books for free from www.archive.org and similar sites. I appreciate that convenience, and also the ease with which I can search within a text for a word or phrase. Nonetheless, on balance, I find ebooks decidedly inferior to paper. Morever, I doubt that my electronic libraries will outlive me in any meaningful way, while I expect that my working libraries of hardcovers and paperbacks, including some rare editions, may serve other researchers well beyond the horizon of my lifetime.

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

As anounced in the last post of 2017, in 2018 I will be posting on Mondays on the following schedule:

First and third Mondays of the month: New writing / news / podcasts;
Second Monday: For the writing workshop;
Fourth Monday: Cyberflanerie and/or Q & A with another writer, poet, and/or translator;
Fifth Monday, when applicable: Whatever strikes my gong.

Working with a Working Library: Kuddelmuddel

Book Review by C.M. Mayo:
Pekka Hamäläinan’s Comanche Empire

Book Review by C.M. Mayo:
Patrick Dearen’s Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.

Decluttering a Library: The 10 Question Could-Be-A-Flowchart

When is it a library and when is it hoarding? A personal library can easily mushroom (ay, and paperbacks do seem to multiply, in multitudinous multitudes) into a gnarly mess. And what good is a library where you can’t find the darned book you’re looking for?

When I was younger and did not have so many books, I loved them each and all, and never gave a one away (though I did, to my everlasting regret, sell my Nancy Drew mysteries collection to my sister). Then, ten years ago, we moved and I had to give away more boxes of books than I imagined possible. Funny, it got easier and easier… and what with all the extra shelf space, so did going to bookstores and amazon.com… and once again, I found my shelves piled with piles and in general chaos (no, Travels in the Yucatan does not belong with the Beatrix Potter bio, and yikes, did I really need 11 books on crop circles??)

In the process of decluttering anew, these ten questions, in the following order, let me decide quickly and easily what to do with each book. I’m filing this post under Future Reminders to Take My Own Advice; should this serve you also, gentle reader, that would be grand.

1. Am I reading it now?

If yes, goes to the READING NOW shelf. If no, on to question 2.

2. Am I planning to read it in the next [fill in the blank]?

For me I have enough shelf space right now to say, “the next couple of years.”

If you live in an empty movie theater you might be able to ask, “Am I planning to read it in the next century?” But if you live in a tiny house on wheels your time frame may shrink to, say, “the next five days.”

Do try to be realistic, if inevitably (sigh) optimistic.

If yes, goes to the READING SOON shelf. If no, on to question 3.

3. Is it part of a collection?

Collections have value on many levels, and the moreso when curated with thought and care. Mine include autographed first editions; Mexican art books; Baja Californiana, Maximiliana, and 19th and 20th century English language travel memoirs of Mexico.

If yes, goes to the appropriate shelf. If no, on to question 4.

4. Does it have serious sentimental value?

Because everything may have some sentimental value, this needs to be rated on a scale of, say, 1 – 10. I have enough shelf space right now that a minimum of 5 on a scale of 1 – 10 works for me.

If yes, it goes to appropriate shelf. If no, on to question 5.

5. Is it necessary for reference?

This also needs to be rated on a scale. I’m going for a 7.5 on a scale on 1 – 10. If you live in a mansion, maybe a 2 or 3 would do; if you live in Manhattan in 2 feet square, maybe you’d need it to be an absolute 10 +.

If yes, goes to REFERENCE shelf or appropriate shelf by subject. If no, on to question 6.

6. Would someone I know be happy to have it?

If yes, goes into an envelope / box and out the door! If no, on to question 7.

7. Can I sell it?

A lot of people don’t realize that some of their older books have value. (How about a 1st edition signed copy of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake? You might buy a car with that.) And even if they’re crummy old paperbacks, if you have enough of them, I suppose you could squeegee together a little mountain of cash.

If yes, it goes onto the TO SELL shelf. And answer question 8. If no, skip directly to question 9.

8. Yeah, but honestly, am I really going to get around to selling it?

The transaction cost might not be worth it.

If yes, well, cool beans. Stop here, and proceed to next book. If no, on to question 9.

9. Can it be donated?

It’s a lovely idea to imagine that the donation of a book might help a library or other nonprofit, and ultimately, be read by others. Please do it! (Certainly a lot of organizations would be thrilled to have that signed first edition of Finnegan’s Wake.) And don’t overlook historical associations and university libraries. Grandpa’s self-published memoir of his time as a POW during WWII; great grandma’s xeroxed and saddle-stapled family history; a highschool year book from 1939 or, say, 1899, might be very welcome on certain shelves. That said, alas, some books are in such bad shape (coffee stains, cracked spines, yellowed, torn pages, etc) that no one wants them, and when you haul them over to, say, Goodwill or your local library, you’re not helping; you’re just giving someone else the unpleasant chore of throwing it in the dumpster.

If yes, goes into the DONATION BOX. (I keep mine in the hall closet. When it fills up, it goes to the basket in the basement, and when that fills up, it all goes into the back of the car, and from there to wherever it needs to go.) If no, on to question 10.

10. Can it be recycled into furniture, insulation, a jewelry box, or art?

If yes, goes to your WORKSHOP / STUDIO.

If the answer has been “no” to all ten questions, light a candle and give it a blessing if you must, but PUT IT IN THE PAPER RECYCLING BIN. This really is the last, the very last, very horrible, very sad, very karmically problematic resort. Oh well!

More anon.

UPDATE: A few more library management posts:

On Organizing (and Twice Moving) a Working Library: Lessons Learned with the Texas Bibliothek

A Working Library: Further Notes and Tips for Writers of Historical Fiction, History, Biography, and/or Travel Memoir, & Etc.