These should be a relatively simple questions, but I am not sure of the answers.
I just built and installed some bookcases that will allow me to move the biography section of my personal library. Now I have a question as to where to put three books. I have been putting the books in that section alphabetical order by the person the biography or autobiography is about which I believe is what libaries do and I feel this will simplify my library’s organization.
However, I have a book that is a collection of biographies about lawmen of the Old West. Where do I put it? The first person featured in the book is Wyatt Earp, but by birth he is the third born of the lawmen mentioned following Ranald McKenzie and Billy Breakenridge, yet they come near the back of the book. Earp does have the longest biography in the book.
A related question, I have a book titled Timberline by Gene Fowler. It is sort of the story of the early years of the Denver Post newspaper told via a biography of Harry Tammen and Frederick Bonfils the founders, first owners and first publishers of the that paper. It pretty much reads as a biography of the paper, but for the most part ends when the second of the two owners/publishers die. When referring to the two men, people almost always say “Tammen and Bonfils”, but Bonfils was younger, and died first. Or should I just put the book in my history section? Still it is clearly a biography.
Lastly, so far at least, I recently read, Seabisquit: The Biography of a Horse (a delightful book, I might add) and have it in my library too. Is it acceptable to keep a horse biography in the biography section of a library? Yes, the book also gives biographies of two of his jockeys, his trainer, and his owner, but the book is about the horse; written as a biography of the horse.
Personally, you should organize your books where ever you think you will find them.
If you were a library cataloger, you would think differently. Not necessarily correctly, just differently.
In general, most libraries put biographies of individuals grouped together by alphabetical order of last name (or first name if it’s somebody like King Henry VIII) and collective biographies in a separate section.
As for the book about two people, you make the call.
Books about horses, shouldn’t go with books about people in my opinion.
Personally, I think the biographies should be grouped by type of person that is being profiled. I.e., scientists together; political figures in another place; etc.
The Dewey Decimal classification hasn’t had a seperate biography section for years, and I don’t believe LC does, either. Biographies are put in the section of the subject’s primary reason for reknown.
Books on Seabiscuit, for instance, class in horse racing, 798.4. Timber Line (two words, not one btw) classes in the 920s for some reason.
I hate to tell you this, but if you want to have a truly well-organized library, at least as far as library professionals are concerned, you’re gonna have to start your organizing from scratch.
Check your local public library to see if you can get access to something called WorldCat. It’s a nationwide database of library holdings that provides both Dewey and LC classification information for most titles.
Essetially, you want to arrange your books broadly by topic, then by the last name of the author.
Well, from what I’ve noticed of bookstore classification (rather than library classification), anthologies/collections with pieces by multiple authors seem to be filed either at the beginning of the genre section or under the name of the editor of the book. Since you’re filing by the name of the biography’s subject, it makes sense to file the book with multiple subjects at the beginning of your biography section.
I see no reason why you can’t include the Seabiscuit biography in that section, either.
Speaking as a present MLIS, you will soon learn that the way library professionals organize a collection is often very much at odds with the way that a user expects it to be.
But you will soon learn that having an MLIS presents you with a wealth of opportunities and a great entree to conversations at parties.
