Can I reach it?
Paper, a file, or both — and whether the printed one is here yet or still in the post.
Library key
Every label, explained.
Plain words for every label on the site. A colour means the same thing everywhere.
The short version
Three questions, every book.
How should I read it?
Carefully, with a goal, for pleasure, or only when I need a page from it.
When?
First, soon, later, at my own pace, or the day a question needs it.
01 · Availability
Can I read it now?
Two labels, two questions: the form I have it in, and whether the printed copy has arrived.
The form
I have it on paper.
I have it as a file, on the Notion shelf.
On paper and as a file. It still counts once.
The printed copy
The printed copy is here, where I can reach it.
02 · How to read
How much of me it asks for.
A way of reading, not a grade. It says nothing about how good the book is or how clever the reader.
Slowly, with a pencil, going back over the hard parts. Theory, clinical work, systems, anything technical.
I open it with a question and read the parts that answer it. The rest can wait.
For the voice, the pleasure, the company. Notes only if they come.
Never cover to cover. I return to the page I need when I need it.
03 · Reading priority
What comes next.
A queue, and an honest one: what would help most now, what it opens up, what I keep putting off. It moves when I do.
The ones that make the rest of the shelf make sense. Foundations, and the books I would be ashamed not to have read.
The next wave, once the foundations are in.
Worth it, and not in a hurry.
Fiction and the reflective ones. They need a mood, not a deadline.
A reference. It waits until a question arrives.
04 · Shelf codes
Fourteen shelves, one code each.
The two-letter code and its swatch sit beside the subject on every card. The colour helps the eye; the name is the identity.
PTPsychology & TherapyPTPOPoetryPOLFLiterature & FictionLFAIAI & TechnologyAIBZBusiness & StrategyBZRLRelationships & LoveRLPHPhilosophy & MeaningPHGSGender & SocietyGSISIdeas & SocietyISWCWriting & CommunicationWCSSSoftware & SystemsSSLRLanguage & ReferenceLRPDProductivity & Self-DevelopmentPDHBHealth & BodyHB
05 · Top 100 method
“Top” means it stayed with me.
Not a bestseller list and not anyone’s canon. The order I would read this shelf in, if I were starting again.
It lasts
Whatever it is made of survives the year it was fashionable.
It opens other books
How much of the rest of the shelf makes sense only after this one.
It changes what I do
A way of thinking, a skill, a sentence I keep using.
It belongs here
Close to what this shelf is about, or filling a hole it has.
It asks to be reread
Whether going back gives more the second time.
Dossier
What every rank carries: a long summary, why it is here, what it taught me, how to read it, what to read before and after, and who wrote it.
Book ID
The call number. It never changes, so the cover and the dossier stay with the book when its rank moves.
Rank
Where the book stands today, from #001 to #100. Unlike the ID, it moves.
06 · Notebook statuses
What the pill on a fragment means.
Fragments are short; letters are addressed to someone. Every fragment carries a CID like ASH-69 and one of these four words.
Finished. I will not touch it again.
Announced. The words are still on their way.
Alive. I come back to it and it moves.
It exists, and it is not ready to be read.
07 · Reading the charts
No vocabulary to learn.
The Insights page starts with a switch that changes what the charts count.
Different books
Each title once, even when I own it twice.
Physical copies
Every printed copy. Two of one title count as two.
Subject balance
How many books sit on each shelf. A longer bar is more shelf.
Key idea
A word a book is indexed under. Most books carry several, so the counts overlap.
Top 100 subject focus
A subject’s share of the shelf against its share of the ranking.
Rank strip
One tick per ranked book along #1 to #100. It says where a subject landed, which a count cannot.
Still to find
A book a dossier sends you to that is not on this shelf yet.
Form
The shape a fragment takes: free-form, a letter, a memory, an essay, a gallery, a chapter or a note.
08 · Words I replaced
Shelf words, not database words.
- Instead of “canonical title”
- Different book
- Instead of “holdings”
- Books I can reach
- Instead of “holdings state”
- The printed copy
- Instead of “subject breadth”
- Subjects covered
- Instead of “composition”
- Subject balance