In a previous post I asked: How Many Books are Too Many?
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The second photo was taken in 1969 after Charity and I were married. We lived in Fort Worth Texas. Our living space was in our two little rooms, inside a house where we lived. But I needed space for a book case for all my books. We had more books than clothes. When we moved from Fort Worth to Wooster, Ohio, in March of 1970, we had our clothes, kitchen necessities and thirty-two boxes of books!
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The first and second photos were taken in 1990's when I was Pastor/Teacher of First Baptist Church in Altoona, Kansas. Kurt Nunnenkamp built these extra nice book shelves, built to fit the room in my church office. These books were my technical books used to study. Plus, I had a room where I had my other books, used as the Church Library.
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Reading books has been a part of my schedule since I was a young person. I loved reading in middle school, I read history books, and books about people mostly.
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In Seminary, Dr. Luther Peak took us to his Church Library and gave us information how to catalog books and papers in our library. I had cataloged my books by numbering them one to 150. Dr. Peak said start with the books you have now.
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Over the years, the number of books for my studies increased.
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When I moved to Altoona, Kansas, I started my own system of filing my books. I was able to catalog each book on a library card with a specific number. It was my own "Dewey Decimal System". That was great since I had several thousand books I also filed papers and articles so as to find them when needed.
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FILING ALL MATERIAL IN A SYSTEM WAS NECESSARY:
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All my sermons had a numbering system, (I used the John MacArthur's system in cataloging sermons) all my religious papers had a numbering system, and all my books had a numbering systems, all my church papers and folders had a numbering system. I catalog all three ring binders.
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I read that Charles Spurgeon read books, and his desk was filled with books while he studied. I picked up on Spurgeon's practice.
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You couldn't have too many books in those days.
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TODAY IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT I AM AFRAID
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When I moved to Lexington, Kentucky, I had little room to put my books. (I left most of my books and many of the papers in Altoona, Kansas). Finally moving to Portsmouth, I had less room and most of the books are stacked in boxes. But I do manage to keep some books in book cases. When you don't have a nice church office to keep all your study material, you are in disarray.
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This has gone down the history road. My Dad had a Christian book store, and he had a few books himself. I wished I had been old enough to have kept those books.
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So how many books are too many? Good question.
