What you know to be useful, or what you believe to be beautiful

I'm reading a book about decluttering at the moment: It's All Too Much: Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh.  I'm only a few chapters in, and I'm finding it a bit repetitive, to be honest.  Much like an American TV show, it seems to be written on the basis that you can't quite remember what was said ten minutes ago, so repeating it can't hurt none...  But the advice isn't bad.

Yes, once again I'm looking at my surrounds and thinking "why do I have all this stuff?"

Regular readers may remember my previous daydreams about moving to a yurt and only owning whatever I need that could fit comfortably within that circular, tent-like abode.  Of course, I'm still completely surrounded by things and am no-where near ready for a yurt-ish existence.

Walsh frequently quotes William Morris's edict that you should "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful," which I think is a lovely way to think about decluttering.

For one thing, it gives me a good justification to keep my favourite toys - I believe them to be beautiful.  On the other hand, it also gives me a good set of criteria to use to weigh up the merits of everything else in my house:

• Is this useful (Y/N)?
• Is this beautiful (Y/N)?
• Is this awesome (Y/N)?

Okay, the last option wasn't part of the original equation, but let's be honest - anything that makes you think "this is totally awesome!" gets a place in your life even if it's hideous and pointless.

I've been thinking a little about weeding lately - in a library context.  I'm on a newly formed "space force", which is keeping track of the use of the space in the building and thinking deep thoughts about what needs to be moved around.

One of the things we're doing is looking at specific, discrete collections and thinking about how the space in those areas are being used (like the Reference Collection, the Curriculum Collection and the Scores Collection).

I know Walsh's book is supposed to be used to help you declutter your house, but I'm starting to wonder what would happen if we applied it to our library.

Walsh advises people to start the decluttering process by completely ignoring the clutter, and instead thinking about a core question:  "What is your ideal life?"

Then, you need to think about each room in terms of: "In my ideal life, what would this room be for?  What would it do for me?" and then regard everything that is in the room with that ideal living space in mind.

That sounds like an interesting way to approach a special collection that has been kicking around long enough to get decidedly unwieldy:

"In my ideal library, what is this collection for?  What would it do for my users/patrons?  What belongs in that ideal space?  What would it look like?"

Then, with the ideal as the goal, reconsider everything in that space (including the shelving) with those core criteria:

Is it useful/beautiful/awesome?

Do we have the guts to do it?