Show us your book "shelfies"!

[KilldeerCheer]

I collect books on all aspects of natural history for use in personal research, school papers, field identification, and personal enjoyment. I've amassed quite a number of titles, and so to keep track of them all I made my own "Dewey-Decimal System" to keep them organized (it seems most of you who've shared so far organize your books in a certain way). So let's go! (This will be very picture heavy)

The shelf starts with the Life Nature Library and associated books, followed by books on zoos, museums, and paleoart.


The next shelf includes more museum books (primarily on the AMNH, my favorite natural history museum) and goes into books by or about various naturalists - including Charles Darwin.


General science going into Astronomy, Historical and Physical Geology, Weather and Climate, before entering General Natural History


More Natural History, including guides for amateur naturalists, books on biology and genetics, before entering evolutionary biology.


Evolutionary biology, which bleeds nicely into the fossil guides and books on general paleontology.


More paleontology (fun fact: these books are placed from newest to oldest) before getting into ecology.


Books detailing the relationships between organisms and their environment, including biogeography and books oceans (and ocean conservation) make up the next shelf. Many of these books are good as field guides for the Eastern US, where I live.


Regional guides begin the next shelf, before getting into the largest section which follows a rough phylogenetic sequence. Including microbial life and land plants (with a heavy angiosperm bias, hoping to change that soon).


The Animal Kingdom section includes many big encyclopedias. A short section on ethology (animal behavior) borders between the general books and the books on invertebrate life, which are mollusk heavy at the moment (there are a lot of good books on shells).


The invertebrate section, which here constitutes arthropods (as well as many field guides to the insects of North America) ends with the beginning of the vertebrate sections, of which the fish take over.


The "fishy" fishes transition well into those four-legged fishes called tetrapods. Lumped as the "herptile" section, because many of these books feature both amphibians and reptiles, include great books on snakes, turtles, and of course the Dinosauria.


There are quite a few good books on dinosaurs here, many of which date to the Dinosaur Renaissance and the post Renaissance, so it's quite fun to see the shift and rise of knowledge over time. Naturally the living dinosaurs, birds, take over from the books on the Mesozoic species.


Books on birds range from global guides to regional field guides that I use very often. We leave the sauropsids and meet the synapsids in this shelf, with these fantastic large guides to mammalian diversity.


I have quite a fondness for mammals, so naturally I have a lot of books on them. These are arranged phylogenetically too, and you can see a clear cetacean bias (who doesn't love whales?)


My major is Anthropology, and in the past few years this section has grown significantly. Books on primates as a whole end with books on human evolution and the subsequent history of Homo sapiens in particular.


This shelf ends with more Anthropology, specifically books on Archaeology and different books on societies, cultures, and peoples.


The last shelf is were I keep the bigger books that don't fit in the other shelves as well as children's books I like to keep for the artwork and paleontological history.


I have other shelves where I keep my National Geographics and my Wildlife Explorer binders, but they look pretty samey.
Thanks for checking them out! 

[tyrantqueen]

I used to have some of those green "Illustrated Library of Nature" series.

[Halichoeres]

Wow, great stuff, Killdeer Cheer! I've thought about labeling my shelves, but I've never gotten around to it. Thanks for sharing!

[Halichoeres]

I've replaced my photos in this thread, but there's still a lot of dead links.

[Lanthanotus]

I've replaced my photos in this thread, but there's still a lot of dead links.

Yay for you and directupload.net which saves me from doing so aswell

[CityRaptor]

Well, here are my shelfies. Not entirely satisfied with the organisation of the books. Making pictures was also kind hindered by a load bearing structure being in the way, so they are bit blurry.

[Sinornis]

Here are a few of my books, mostly from my birdwatching days, but slowly being taken over by dinosaur and books on evolution. A couple of my most cherished collector books include; first edition The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, first edition Odontornithes: A Monograph on the Extinct Toothed Birds of North America by O.C. Marsh, first edition Ichnology of New England by Edward Hitchcock and the 1862 TRUE first edition of the Thomas Henry Huxley lectures on the Origin of Species, only 39 copies survive in libraries worldwide, versus 165 known copies of Darwin's seminal work. The picture of the two books are the Wallace book and the Huxley book. The Huxley book was incidentally his publishers personal copy.

http://avianmusing.blogspot.com/   

[Lanthanotus]

Impressive... I read the Malay Archipelago aswell but in the "poor man's" recent edition - that first edition is a real treasure. That colorful cover is genuine for the book (the Huxley one I guess)? Are they foil coated or sealed? Or is that a glass cover from a cabinet?

[Sinornis]

Impressive... I read the Malay Archipelago aswell but in the "poor man's" recent edition - that first edition is a real treasure. That colorful cover is genuine for the book (the Huxley one I guess)? Are they foil coated or sealed? Or is that a glass cover from a cabinet?

The reflective shine is from my libraries lighting, The Wallace book has an inconspicuous (safe), easily removed cover. The Huxley book (I removed from protective cover), is original, but here is bit more info;

Bound in contemporary half calf, richly gilt spine and gilt-lined front and back boards, title label and five raised bands over marbled boards by Williams. All sides of text block marbled. Small 8vo, 19 by 13 cm, 157 pages. 5 figures. Marbled endpapers with armorial bookplate of Edmund Sydney Williams on inner cover. London: Robert Hardwicke, 1862.

December 1862 true first edition of this little green book, bound in a contemporary and luxurious leather binding, from the personal library of Edmund Sydney Williams, the publisher of Huxley's other major work on Darwinian evolutionary theory, Man's Place in Nature, which was to be released by Williams and Norgate only a few months later, in February 1863. It was Huxley's full-time engagement with the preparations for Man's Place in Nature that prevented him from capitalizing on the lectures on the Origin (all proceeds went to Hardwicke).

[ceratopsian]

Some treasures indeed, Sinornis.

[Jose S.M.]

I'm sorry for resurrecting a thread inactive since 2018, but I wanted to show something off and this is the best place to fit it in. I made a bookshelf for my old bedroom, well my dad and I made it and I think it came up pretty good for being the fisr time doing something like this. It's pretty empty since most of my recent books are on my boyfriend's house. Anyway here it is:

[Gwangi]

Don't be sorry, this is a thread worth resurrecting. Thanks for sharing!

[Libraraptor]

I definitely agree that this thread is worth resurrecting,  too!  I just noticed I have to renew the posts . All my pictures are gone.

[sauroid]

im in the process of gathering all my books/reading materials in one place and organising a shelf.
is there some kind of book "protector" where you can put your books to avoid them getting dusty/damaged? like some kind of plastic/similar material sleeves?

[Halichoeres]

Definitely a thread I like to see surfaced from time to time. You and your dad did a great job on the bookcase, José!

im in the process of gathering all my books/reading materials in one place and organising a shelf.
is there some kind of book "protector" where you can put your books to avoid them getting dusty/damaged? like some kind of plastic/similar material sleeves?

The best thing, in my opinion, is a glass-fronted bookcase. There's really no other way to avoid dust altogether. However, Brodart makes archival quality covers for books and their dust jackets. It generally won't cover the pages, but it will protect the binding. http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-Supplies/Book-Care-and-Repair-Supplies/Book-Covers/?=

[sauroid]

thanks Halichoeres. im thinking of just putting each book in a high quality plastic/polypropylene bags to keep them as new looking as possible.