Tips for Storing Your Book Library in a Storage Unit

If you love to collect and read books, you may find yourself with a large collection in a short amount of time. Books are insightful and educational, but they're also bulky. Having a large library of books may take up lots of space inside your home and cause you to have a hard time keeping everything organized.

Luckily, self-storage units come in handy when dealing with a bulky book library. By keeping your books organised in storage, you can easily retrieve what you need to read while leaving enough space inside your home.

But how can you maintain order when arranging your books in a self-storage unit?

1. Install portable shelving

Perhaps the most common mistake that people make is to simply dump their books in boxes and then place those boxes in a storage unit. If you love to read, your books deserve much better treatment. Furthermore, poor storage may result in your books becoming torn, damaged by water or lost.

A better approach is to use portable shelving. There are many shelving kits that you can purchase and install in your storage unit. They vary by size, design and complexity, giving you the freedom to select a shelf design that works for your specific library. Make sure your shelf is sturdy enough to keep your books in place.

2. Have a method to the madness

It's not just about stuffing as many books as you can inside a shelf. You should have a method to the madness, where you arrange the books in a manner that works best for you.

Some may prefer to arrange in alphabetical order, while others may arrange by author or publisher. The point is being able to retrieve a specific book in a short amount of time.   

3. Keep your most used books within easy reach

Regardless of your arrangement method, you should keep all your favourite reads in an easily accessible location. Consider placing them in the middle of the shelf so you can immediately pull out a specific title as soon as you enter the storage unit.

Avoid placing your favourite reads in on the top or bottom shelf because those can be challenging to access when your self-storage unit gets full.

4. Elevate the shelf from ground level

Protecting your book library should be your top priority as a reader. Even if your storage unit is sealed and secure, avoid placing any books on ground level. Your shelf should be elevated from the floor, or you may consider leaving one or two bottom shelves empty. You should also consider obtaining a climate-controlled unit.