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Showing posts with label Texas Bibliothek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas Bibliothek. Show all posts
Monday, November 11, 2019
Monday, September 24, 2018
Working with a Working Library: Kuddelmuddel
By C.M. MAYO www.cmmayo.com
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.
[>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]
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.
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.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
This blog posts every Monday. Starting this year, every fourth Monday, except when not, is a Q & A with another writer. This week not.
 |
| [ My writing assistant keeps an eye on Kuddelmuddel] |
In the meantime, herewith, a few lessons learned about working with a working library.
[>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]
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.
 |
| [Bookmarks for books in my working library] |
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.
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.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, February 05, 2018
On Organizing (and Twice Moving) a Working Library: Ten Lessons Learned of Late with the Texas Bibliothek
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| [ 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). ] |
[>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]
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.
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| [ Ideas About Texas (some, anyway)] |
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. ] |
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.
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| [ Yeah, Literary Nuns! (Note label in upper right corner) ] |
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| [ 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!
+ 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.
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| Listen in anytime |
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| My working library of out-of-copyright Texas books, mainly from archive.org I make no claims for its usefulness to anyone else. |
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.
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