Hello readers!
Welcome to my book shelfie bio. My name is Rachel and I’m the Acquisitions and Collections Librarian at UCL. What that means is my department receives all the materials for the library (books, DVDs, audios, etc.) and we process, catalog, and make them shelf ready for you to check out. I also am in charge of ordering the bulk of the Adult collections as well as the A/V and digital items from Overdrive.
This is the entirety of my “library” in my house. The tipping point for me when I was
buying a house was this room because it was big enough as a spare bedroom, but
small enough that I knew I could make a whole wall full of shelves to hold all my
things. It’s not really organized yet, although some shelves are better than others,
but basically if it has made it upstairs to this room, I have read it and liked it enough
to keep it. It’s a mix of romance (my favorite genre), signed Young Adult titles,
classics from my college days, and even some binders of college notes and papers
on the bottom corner.
These are two of my favorite shelves because they highlight my pop-up The Little Mermaid book that is insanely beautiful and was given to me by a close friend when I got my first librarian job back in Ohio. I don’t usually keep it open on the shelf because dust is not my friend, but for picture purposes it’s gorgeous. You’ll also see on the shelf below a peek at my Laini Taylor collection. I have three copies of Strange the Dreamer all signed by her as I’ve met her a couple times at Yallfest andALA (American Library Association’s annual conference). Her books are full of world building that can transport you to imaginary worlds you never want to leave and I had to also have the special collectors British editions with the colored end papers.
The next shelf has my first and my latest books. The latest book is my collector’s
edition of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone. I will fight someone for an early copy
of anything she writes and will spend all my money on any special edition whatever
they put out. She is definitely in my top 5 favorite authors. On April 23rd I’ll be in
front of my TV, obsessively watching The Grisha series on Netflix The first book I ever remember owning is this Hallmark edition of The Night Before Christmas. My mom used to read it to me throughout the year before I could read myself. It has a tied front cover and the pages flip up instead of over and fit into these hard end tabs.
This shelf has the final 10 (although I currently have 3 loaned out) titles that won
the Alex Award in 2019. I served a full year on the committee through YALSA and
had to read and discuss over 96 adult titles with 7 other librarians throughout the
US, meeting in person twice at conferences and numerous times over Google to debate if these titles would appeal to teens. Ultimately we ended up with this list and I had one of my nominations, Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey Mcquiston, make the final 10. I read that book four times so I would be ready to defend it to the committee and debate anyone who had issues with it and it was a close vote towards the end, but it made it and when they announced the winners the next day, it was like the Oscars for books.
Obligatory Harry Potter shelves here! Yes I’m obsessed with all things Harry Potter
and yes I display my books directly in my living room for anyone to see whenever
they come over so we can geek out together. The first four books in the series are
actually my second copies as I originally had a paperback set. The last three are my
original copies that I waited in line for at midnight at my local grocery store for
when I was in college. We didn’t have a bookstore close by, so Kroger was where
you could go to buy it first. Also the next picture is my current TBR. As I said earlier,
if a book makes it upstairs I have already read it. If it’s downstairs, I haven’t read it
yet (other than Harry Potter). It’s a system I have found that works for me as I am
typically downstairs in my house and I can see all the books left to be read. This
bookcase also has my current library checkouts as well as the top shelf with all the
ARCs I picked up at my last library conference when we could still have those in
person.
Finally, my last shelf is actually my Kindle. I have had a kindle since 2008 and it has been where I read the majority of my books now. As a librarian, I am able to get a lot of books early from publishers and they have made those available in eBook format as well as the ease of Libby from the library.
I have no idea how many thousands of books I have on my Kindle but it is a ridiculous number I’m sure and I have them all in some form of descriptive collection to keep track of them. Some
are by genre, some are by author, some are by series as romance series can
number in double digits, but I somehow make sense of it all and I can find what I
need to when I want to reread something.
Thanks for coming on this journey with me and making me dust my book shelves so they were camera ready!
_Rachel Webb, Acquisitions and Collections Librarian
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