How do you arrange a series on your shelf?

You have a set of books, or books from the same series, and you place them side by side on your shelf, in order. Did you place the first book on the far left, or on the far right?

For forty years, I've always placed the first book on the far right. If I tip this stack of books over, it's the one on top. If I can see the cover of any book in the series as it stands on my shelf, it'll be the first one. That seems logical to me.

I see that in libraries, they are typically lined up from left to right. We read from left to right (in English, anyway), so I suppose it makes sense. Publishers seem to assume this ordering as well, when they publish spines that create a united picture when you stand them next to one another.

Which one are you, a lefty or a righty? I'm curious to see who forms the majority.

I go from left to right - first to last.

Left to right.

Um, Mostly I just put them on the shelf without worrying about order. I do try to keep most of them vertical, but in series that are stilll growing there are usually a few horizontally on top of the others.

left to right first to last

Left to right. It has never even occurred to me that you could do otherwise. That's also the direction I browse a shelf in, and the direction I sort (authors) by alphabetical order. For me, right to left could only make sense if you did all sorting right to left.

left to right - first to last. Books not in a series are typically sorted alphabetically by author and then by title (and I'm not a librarian, so I'm totally ignoring any rules about the, a, an, .. and sorting them like my computer programs do.)

Left to right when they are vertical; top to bottom when they are horizontal. Using the direction my eyes take in a shelf basically.

It depends on the orientation of the title on the spine, too, for me. If I tilt my head left to read it, the first is on the left. If I tilt right, the first is on the right. Basically, if I removed the series as a unit and rotated it will 90° into a stack, to keep the titles right side up.

But what if you have two or more shelves. Then it would save time to have every second row go right to left :-)

I can see where the majority is leaning, lol. I think my shelves would make all of your fingers itch to rearrange them.

>8 AnnieMod:, it is interesting, isn't it, that if you were to stand up your horizontal stack then it would be right to left, like mine. This also leads me to think about which way I "take in a shelf basically". I find that it's like trying to think about how to tie my shoes, it becomes confusing to concentrate on how I do what I'm doing automatically. My eyes alight on a particular title, then they might go left or they might go right from there, depending on ... I don't know what.

>9 keristars: ...and it's very disconcerting if you have some books on a shelf with titles running down, English style, and some with titles running up, German-style. It makes you feel you need a few more articulations in your neck. But it also gives a very uncomfortable feeling if you try shelving the German books upside-down to make all the titles read the same way...

>11 Cecrow: Well, yes but then I will reorder it. :)

What really bugs me are the series that take more than a shelf. Do I stick the reminder under the last books (in whatever order) or at the start of the shelf below or on the shelf in the next bookcase (and plan so that the series is in 2 adjacent bookcases). Or on top of the full shelf if there is enough space? Decisions, decisions….

>12 thorold: Bulgarian publishers use both directions (the standard changed awhile back but some refuse to change and there are always older books). Makes my brain hurt when I look at my Bulgarian shelves. (And some of the English ones - older UK books use the opposite direction).

>14 AnnieMod: That's easy. Divide the books by directions and have them in separate rooms.

>12 thorold: Yes! I keep my French books separated so it doesn't feel weird to see the titles in a different alignment. There's a big Complete Shakespeare as a separator, with the title printed across the spine instead of down it, to ease the transition. :D

>12 thorold: It wouldn't bother me so much if there was a consistant 'German-style'.

Insofar as I keep series together, I would follow the numerical order supplied by the publisher, e.g. when I purchase a "complete" set from a used bookstore, e.g. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- or I suppose alphabetically if I had a multivolume encyclopedia set. But for ongoing series, I would shelve individual volumes wherever what little space was available. I do have a short pile of unread Patrick O'Brian novels on top of one of my CD cases, with no conscious arrangement but the spine design allows me to say mentally: "Oh there's the O'Brians." If memory serves, some of my Pelican Art & Architecture volumes were segregated (in no particular order) w/other art history books in a remote/inaccessible corner behind the TV, but many strays acquired over the years were placed in whatever bookcases had space available. There's a feature on Kindle that automatically brings books in a series together, e.g. New York Review imprints, but I find it annoying when I can't remember if a book is in a publisher series & it's hidden by a cover image of whatever the software deigns to display on "top," & come to think of it, not sure how the Kindle sorts its series collections or sorts within a given series.