Sarah, how bad is it for books to stack them horizontally like this? I've been doing it off and on for a few years now, and I'm always fearful that one day I'll take an O'Neill play out and its pages will be completely and utterly stuck together.
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I just took a class all about preservation. Stacking books this way is not ideal because, duh, the stack puts a lot of pressure on the books at the bottom. Also, isn't it hard to get out the lowest books?
That said, stacking them like this is a bigger problem in libraries, where books can stay in one place, unused, for years. I know you use your books. Plus you move house once a year or so, which shifts the books around. Just put heavier books, big books, & hardcover books at the bottom.
I think different standards apply for personal book collections and libraries, where the job is to keep the books safe as long as possible. You should live with your books in a way that makes you happy. And these piles are beautiful.
I have an intricate maneuver wherein I lean my weight against a vertical stack of books, and as I lift with one arm the books above my desired target (and/or reduce pressure on it), I slip the lucky bastard out with the other. There are sometimes accidents. And when my landlord has to access a secret little hatch in the wall behind my bookstacks, I pout.
Weirdly, I'm possessive of people cracking the spines of my older, first-edition-ish books, but that's less about preservation and more about ownership. For myself, I'm not so concerned with preserving the original quality of my books and more interested in being able to look at and access them when I want.
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