#personal library

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 472

Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s

Adam Rowe

Abrams 2023

Another new book from Abrams. We’ve gotten to the point in publishing where, if you’re like me and like large-format art books, you need to get used to the idea of buying them when they are released. Fewer and fewer publishers are taking the risk of releasing art books, and they are staying in print for shorter and shorter periods of time. So, when I heard about this book, I made a point of getting myself a copy, and I’m glad I did. While my preference in vintage book cover art leans more toward the pulp era, it is the 70s covers that I find myself the most familiar and nostalgic. Featuring some all-time greats—Frazetta, Vallejo, Elson, Emshwiller, Mead, the Dillons, et al—and divided into subject categories such as spaceships, cities and landscapes, plants, animals, aliens, fantasy realms, and cryptozoology, this is a beautiful and very welcome look at an incredibly creative, experimental, and occasionally ridiculous sci-fi decade.

[the-home]

[pagan-stitches]

First 2 photos my embroidery.

Last 2 from: Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe by Mary B. Kelly, 1996

[nyxshadowhawk]

My occult library! I’m pretty proud of this. I’ve got a nice mix of classic occult books, fluffy witch books, serious scholarship, and editions of grimoires. And on a broad range of subjects! I’ve got some ceremonial magic, some folk magic, some chaos magic, some ancient paganism, some neopaganism, some alchemy… I’ve basically covered all the bases!

Please don’t tell me how many of those I’ve actually read. 😬

[bookaddict24-7]

I love a good Xmas tree and bookshelves 😌

[sleepandblog]

BIG library fan but god owning books is awesome too

[victusinveritas]

Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries:

"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

"There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

"If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!

"Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

[sugar-plum-senpai]

Fanfiction PDF Archive Notion Template | Digital Archive | Digital Library | Fanfiction Library Notion Template

Get the template on: Ko-fi

Save your favorite fanfics before they are deleted from AO3! 🥲

Save your favorite fics NOW! This template is intended to be used as a preventative measure against fic deletion. Make use of AO3’s download feature (amazing, truly!) and upload PDF files of your favorite fics to this Notion template to create your very own digital fanfic library.

What You Get:

- Aesthetic Dashboard (Pink Sakura Theme)

- Fanfic PDF Archive/Digital Library (with a button for embedding PDF files)

- Fanfic Review Page (includes automated fanfic review template)

- Fanfiction Resources Page (I've added a few helpful links to resources already!)

- Fanfic Counter Widget

- Navigation

- Spotify Playlist Widget

- Links to AO3, FanFiction.net and other fanfic websites

PLEASE NOTE: This template is for personal use ONLY. NEVER re-upload or repost a deleted fanfic to another site. If the fic has been deleted, that means the author no longer wants that fic available on the web. This template is designed to be used as a private fanfic archive for personal enjoyment.

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 538

John Abbot: Birds, Butterflies and Other Wonders (Art of Nature)

Pamela Gilbert

Merrell Holberton / The Natural History Museum, London 1998

In July 1773, John Abbot (1751—c. 1840), a twenty-year-old amateur naturalist, left England to spend the rest of his life in Virginia and Georgia to collect and paint specimens for clients in England and Europe. For nearly sixty years, until his death around 1840, he worked meticulously to catalog, paint, and supply specimens for collectors and other naturalists. Though his work was prolific and in demand throughout his life, he never sought greater recognition and virtually never published, as opposed to his contemporary John James Audubon, despite having painted and catalogued many bird specimens well before Audubon began work. Besides being a talented artist, particularly of insects, Abbot was also a gifted scientist and naturalist. Many of the specimens he painted were extinct within forty years of his death, a consequence he predicted following the increase in human population and changes in farming practices.

[the-home]

[pagan-stitches]

Top and bottom photos are my personal embroidery, the middle two are from the book.

[deadpresidents]

Seeing as how you have so many books do you ever run into the problem of buying one and then realizing you already have it when you get home? I sometimes do that after visiting used book shops!

Yes, I've 100% had that issue! I remember finding myself interested in the life of Louis Mountbatten after watching one of the seasons of The Crown, so I decided to pick up some books about him whenever I was at a used bookstore over the next couple of months. I think I ended up buying four copies of the same book. To my credit, they all were different editions of the same book, so they looked different on the outside, but they were all the same book between the covers.

I did find a solution, however. It took a little bit of time and work, but it's ended up being very helpful (and helpful with saving a little money in the long run!). I moved to a different apartment during the pandemic, so while unpacking all of my books, I just created a document on my computer with every book's title, author, and ISBN number. Now, I take a minute or two to update it every single time I add a new book to my personal library, and have a copy of the list easily accessible from my iPhone whenever I'm in a bookstore and am unsure whether or not I already have a copy of a certain book. It's also an easy and useful way to catalogue your entire personal library and keep the information fresh. There are also various library or cataloguing apps that you can use for the same reason -- many of them allow you to just snap a photo of the barcode or ISBN of a book and the app autofills all of the information it. I've used a few of those in the past*, but the simple list with the title/author/ISBN number is all I need and it's definitely helped kept me from buying something more than once.

(*If I were to recommend an app for cataloguing your personal library, I'd suggest Bookpedia. It's the best of all of the apps I've tried, simple and straightforward, easy to use, and has a clean interface without any of the clutter and crap that some of the other apps have. There was a small, one-time fee when I first started using the app, but there were no hidden, in-app purchases or features that required more money. I've been using Bookpedia for at least five years, so I'm sure there are other, newer personal library apps out there that people would recommend, but Bookpedia has had every feature I've needed out of such an app.)

[bookaddict24-7]

I have never had so much space for future “read” books. My new shelves are up in my new basement library space!!! Props to my stepdad for creating a literal library for me 😭

[bubu0h]

How I Manage my personal AO3 e-library Archive

Download everything I want/hope to read in EPUB format. I try to anyways... if I notice I got too many tabs open on my browser, time to download If multi-chapter remember first to press 'Entire Work' and then 'Download'

2. I use Book Story (Android App) to manage the mess that is my downloads folder - this app is a great book database manager AND scroll reader with Big letters as well - The app has this fantastic feature that allows me put the books into 'Reading' 'Already Read' 'Planing' 'Dropped' categories; I move the books around and it helps me keep a visual tab on them - , plus if you like scroll reading this one is fantastic at that as well.

Periodically I update the BACKUP of the folder(s) were the copies of books live. KEEP A BACKUP OF YOUR BACKUP , if you mess around and don't got no backup is really painful and irreversible.

On my computer I then make a copy of my messy ass downloads folder from my phone into my computer. While looking at the visual information the app provides me I delete books that I 'Dropped' and I move 'Already Read' books into my computer E-Library Data Base (I use Calibre) that's my main book hub where I will quickly notice what books need covers and I take my time working to finding an image I like for the book , so I can recognize them books by just looking at the covers I am terrible at remembering book titles

If you are curious this is what Calibre looks like - this is just AO3

3. To read EPUB books I use Libera FD Is frankly the best reader I have tried because I prefer page turning. If you like scroll reading Book Story is much better option for scroll reading.

Libera FD can customize pretty much EVERYTHING and is very very feature rich ( it can be overwhelming) HUMONGOUS FONT SIZE , you can download any font you want to use, replace words if I want to , it has OLED dark mode for reading at 3 am, you can configure it so it reads to you (using TTS) , several reading modes including auto scroll and speed reading mode, and so much more; the dev(s) are still updating and adding functions to it is kind of amazing I am probably not using it to its full potential You can sort books by 'Genre' which is how the app recognize the tags from the website.

Here some visuals of Libera FD (I wrote in the ALT of pics, click on it)

Book Story is a neat app , less overwhelming and the UI is a lot more intuitive. It looks like this for me , you can configure the essentials to your preference. Is a fairly new app be patient with it (sometimes just give two minutes to cook) , it is still being updated. The dev is very active if you got suggestion or present bugs.

4. How to provide enrichment to glorious magnificent authors , that share their passion with us for free. When you open any ao3 .epub on either of these apps the links are underlined. I tap on the link it leads back to the original posted website page at the beginning of every book you get from A03.

Tap the link, keep it open in your browser and star reading.

Open a note taking app.

I usually take notes about my silly musings as I read, copy quotes and whatever else I want to leave in the comment section of the chapter I am on. Cut and paste and that's it. I load the next chapter in the website and then continue reading the next chapter on the reading app (I comment on all the chapters if I have something to comment, sometime I don't have anything to say so I don't . Figure it makes authors happy and i find it very fun. Sometimes they answer back it feels nice) remember to leave kudos and comments specially if you are rereading.

I use Quillpad (android app) the most important feature of any note taking app you choose, in this case in particular, is that it saves your notes automatically (I used some apps that didn't it was devastating losing all my notes like that. I though that as long as I didn't close the app it was fine turns out not - some you have to manually save - and sometimes it would timeout and gone , all my notes gone. With Quillpad I haven't lost notes)

I haven't taken the time to figure out if Librera has a feature for annotation that could be useful for commentary note taking

I think that's all I can think of sharing on this topic. I am open to questions and adding things to this post with visual aid and whatever I can do to help , do let me know.

Keeping a copy of books safe and easy to find KEEP BACKUPS OF YOUR BACKUPS

-Updated Nov. 11 , 2024.