PUTTING THE FINISHING TOUCHES ON MY NEW LIBRARY

 

MY LIBRARY VIEWED FROM THE SOUTHWEST CORNER

After several months of building, putting bookshelves together, moving furniture, and arranging books, I finally have my new library almost completely finished. The books are arranged in a modified Dewey Decimal order (I call it the Dekle Decimal System), and all that really remains is to update my catalog of books, a chore which I have been neglecting for several years.

MY LIBRARY VIEWED FROM THE NORTHWEST CORNER

For my entire married life I have never had enough room for all my books, and many of them have been kept in boxes in various storage facilities over the years. I've still got some in storage, but all the important ones are now in the new library. It was fun pulling books out of the attic and out of the various storage places I'd put them in and getting reacquainted with them after not seeing them for years.

I began my library when I was in grammar school at Lake Butler Elementary, and I still have a few books from that time period. The oldest, and possibly the most valuable, books I have were originally in the library of Dr. Seeber King of Lake Butler.

MY LIBRARY VIEWED FROM MY DESK

Every Dewey Decimal classification is represented in my library, but some classifications are more heavily populated than others. I have approximately 47 feet of books in the 200's, which cover the Bible, religion, and mythology; 46 feet of books in the 300's, which cover law, crime, military history, and warfare; 23 feet of books in the 800's, which cover literature, poetry, and theater; and 30 feet of books in the 900's, which cover history. The other Dewey Decimal numbers, plus the fiction books, add another 140 feet of books. And finally, my library contains 50 feet of mass market paperback books. That's approximately 336 feet of books. The count is somewhere over 4,200 books.