the home library: a guide to the books you keep at home

Belanews

An independent guide to the home library. It is not a news publication, a shop or a library, and it has no connection with the previous website on this domain.

Archive

Archive

This lists every published page of the guide in the order it was prepared. The archive comes to the rescue when you remember reading somewhere about dust on the top edge or a catalogue in a notebook but can't recall where: choose a tag and only that section's pages will remain in the list. The tags match the guide's sections, so the archive also shows which topics are already covered in detail and where there is still little material.

Every line in the archive leads to a finished page. There are no placeholders or promises for the future here: if a page is on the list, you can already open it and read it in full.

— From the editors

An entry appears in the archive only once the page has been published. The date shows when the page was prepared, and the tag shows its main section: shelves, care, reading or cataloguing. The tags are the same as in the new pages feed, so filtering by section works the same way in both places. Addresses from the previous website were not carried over, except for four that external links still point to: they now host our own notes on the home library. If a page is substantially updated, its entry date changes.

2026

The domain's old addresses

Before us, a different website ran on this domain. Belanews has no connection with it and does not restore its content. External links still point to four of its former addresses, so we have placed our own notes on the home library there: on arranging books, caring for them, keeping a home catalogue and where to give away unwanted books. All four pages were written from scratch, exist only in Russian and have nothing to do with the previous content. No other old addresses were carried over.

  • Reference

    Glossary: binding, spine, endpaper, edges, dust jacket, ISBN, shelf mark, bookplate, acid-free paper.

  • New

    A dated feed of the guide's pages, tagged by section.

  • Sections

    Four sections: shelves and order, book care, family reading, swapping and cataloguing.

  • Collections

    Reading paths: your first home shelf, books and children, old books.

What we drew on

  • Belanews guide pages

This advice is general and meant for an ordinary home library. If a book is especially valuable, very old or already damaged, it is better to show it to a conservator or bookbinder than to attempt a repair yourself.