Those with many hundreds of records: How do you sort & file?

[Marco Gilardetti]

I never had a specific room for gramophones and all the libraries in my house are overfilled with (guess what?) books; moreover libraries for 78s should be made according to the extreme wheight they have to bear. I admit I occasionally store records in albums as they are handy and can be slot almost anywhere, but usually I keep there only records that I don't care much about, as albums are prone to crack records' edges, and their 100 years old papers and seams are not exactly "failsafe" in my experience.

As I wanted to keep records in damage-proof, disaster-safe containers with which I could also conveniently carry them around, at a point in time (20 years ago or so) I designed and begun crafting specific wooden boxes that after few "evolutions" are now - in their "Mark III" incarnation - very handy and satisfying. Not only the records are bomb-proof protected, but are easily carried around the house or at the occasional show/exhibition. They can be piled-up, aligned on the floor in corridors, or also stacked on the lowest shelf of libriaries.

The top board of the boxes has an open-type hinge, so it can be entirely removed when desired. The front board has a split top that can be flipped towards the front for easier access with hands. Lately, as I reckon that records in overfilled boxes were hard to handle, I added a hinged tiltable lower board. It is important that the tilt is only few degrees, so that there is almost no displacement and no force is applied on the records' edges; the board is also hinged in a way that avoids pinching the records when the board is being shut. The tiltable lower board was a huge improvement and made access to records much easier and manageable. The interiors are padded with high quality bouclé moquette, with a double layer at the bottom.

The only drawback is that I designed the first box when I was young and felt as strong as a lion. Today, in perspective, I would perhaps have made the first box a bit more shallow and hence lighter...

In each box, I limit myself to separate records grossly by country, sometimes by decades, very sparsely by genre. Indeed I like to go through all of the records of each box periodically, and enjoy a more or less sort of casual musical program, which gives me the opportunity to play also "lesser" records that perhaps I would never make my mind to listen to, if records were too perfectly sorted.

[Marco Gilardetti]

Concerning how each single record is stored, I was always unhappy by both keeping records in their original sleeve (because they're too easily teared or crumpled - and they also don't offer any substantial protection to the record) and by replacing the original covers with contemporary cardboard covers (as they are anonymous, while period covers are in most cases nicely artistic and amusing to look at).

Only lately I devised a storage system that keeps the best of both systems described above, actually improving each of the two, and went through *all* of my records (and I mean *all*) to convert each of them to this new style. It consists in putting the record inside a cardboard cover, and the cardboard cover inside a polypropylene sleeve. The original sleeve is then put between the front sheet of the polypropylene sleeve and the front sheet of the cardboard cover. This system in my opinion is win/win, it has no drawbacks but countless positive sides:

- the records are well protected by the rigid cardboard cover;
- the original period sleeve is well visible and...
- ...it looks as if the record was actually into it;
- the original period sleeve is in turn protected by the polypropylene sleeve;
- there is virtually no way to tear or crumble the original period sleeve, as the record is not actually stored into it;
- the central hole of the sleeve will not get hanged on the hole of another sleeve (and tear it, drag it, etc.) as the outer polypropylene sleeve has no holes at all;
- the polypropylene sleeve will offer some extra protection against humidity or accidental spill of water;
- and so on...

I know that other fellow collectors, like Carlos, also keep each record in this way.

[Orchorsol]

Your storage boxes are ingenious, beautifully executed and immensely practical Marco - fantastic! Excellent idea regarding the sleeves, too.

[Marco Gilardetti]

Thanks Andy, you're very kind as usual! As said I begun crafting the boxes as a fallback solution, but at this point they're so convenient and safe that I suppose I would store my records this way even if I had other options.

Concerning the sleeves - the idea is not mine, I saw a seller keeping his records this way and immediately thought it was very ingenious and wanted my collection to be also stored that way; then later I saw that also other fellows - like Carlos - keep their records this way.

[bart1927]

I have a modest collection of about 1500 records. I store them in a Lundia cabinet. These are very strong, and the shelves can carry 80 kg's each, so they won't break. The shelves are relatively short (only 50 cm), but because I was afraid of records leaning against each other, and maybe getting warped, or small hairline fractures getting bigger, I installed vertical dividers on each shelf. Just mdf, fastened to the shelf with wooden pegs. I keep the records in the well known Disc-O-File sleeves, and if a record came with a nice original sleeve, I store them in the same way Marco described. I've considered sorting them by artist, label or genre, but I didn't like the idea of moving entire sections of records each time I bought some new ones. So I just store them in order of purchase. I catalogue them in Microsoft Works, and that's how I find them. Whenever I'm looking for a record I just type in the artists name, or the catalogue number, or the title, and hit the search button. And then I see that record 1368 (for instance) is the one I'm looking for.

[CarlosV]

Thanks Andy, you're very kind as usual! As said I begun crafting the boxes as a fallback solution, but at this point they're so convenient and safe that I suppose I would store my records this way even if I had other options.

Concerning the sleeves - the idea is not mine, I saw a seller keeping his records this way and immediately thought it was very ingenious and wanted my collection to be also stored that way; then later I saw that also other fellows - like Carlos - keep their records this way.

I second Andy in my congratulations for your boxes, Marco, practical, well-crafted and very good to look at!

As for me, I cut U-shaped pieces of cardboard and fill them with about 12-13 records (in their individual modern card sleeves, as Marco does), and put everything into a sturdy 12-inch plastic protection cover. I print labels and it is easy to shelve and retrieve them. I only store them after a bagfull is filled, so it becomes solid as a brick inside the plastic bag. For the 12-inch records, I bought transportation foldable cardboard boxes, each fits about 12, and I do the same, fill the box and place a label. This process works more of less well, the problem I am facing now is the backlog ...

[Inigo]

I own a modest collection over 5,000 78s, although roughly 1,000 uglies are stored apart in the basement, in thick cardboard boxes of 50 each, unsleeved. The part I'm currently using is then about 4,000. 600 of them are 12", and these are a problem. I store some thematic groups in a dozen generic albums (chamber music, some concerts and symphonies, and old opera records) and of course, the record sets in their own albums. The rest of 12"s are stored in single paper sleeves by record number (I mean its catalogue number) mixed labels, i.e.: Columbia D-125, then HMV DB-126 and the like. It's because I formerly stored all 78s this way, but the problem of reshuffling for new records (specially the 10"s) made me later switch to a library cataloguing system. Still, 12"s were so few that I maintained the record number system. I simply liked knowing the record numbers by heart. Nothing to say, this system works no more, and I must consult the catalogue to search for a record.
10"s are stored by library cataloguing system; a serial number is assigned chronologically to each new record when I enter it in the database, and the number penciled in the sleeve corner for easy access. The records are stored in their sleeves with the open border at hand, so you have only to browse through the numbers in the corners to locate a record, then extract the sleeve a few centimetres and simply pull the record out. This system was promoted by Boris Semeonoff in its small Record Collecting book, and maybe also by Percy Wilson. You have to maintain the database updated. For easier access, I print a catalogue out from the database, sorted alphabetically by artists and titles intermixed, in the same fashion as the companies catalogues. So it's very fast to locate a record looking into the catalogue, with no need to switch the computer on except for a very specific search. I print catalogue supplements from time to time with the new records, and every few years, when the collection has increased substantially so the supplement becomes thicker, I reprint an entirely new catalogue. With this system, the advantages are remarkable: you don't need to reshuffle the collection, new records are simply added behind. Besides that, you can pick a bunch of records for casual listening, and they are entirely mixed, which I find more funny than listening to lots of records by the same artist or genre. Of course, the truck is in the up-to-date database and the printed catalogues and supplements. You can filter the database and search (or print specific catalogues) for a given artist, etc. Of course, the database must have homogeneous titles and artists names for this system to be fully effective. Then, any special sorting or record grouping is done with the database only, not with the records themselves.
Record sets in original albums are stored apart. Record sets without albums are stored among the rest , but in grouped sleeves all together. I file them by the serial number of the first record in the set.
The database reflects also where a record is stored, in which album or in which shelf and what number.
The only drawback pops up when you want to take all the records buy a given artist, etc; then you have to go through the collection cherry-picking then from their storage places. Also when you want to study the evolution of a label, or other similar discographical work...
Still I store some special parts of the collection in generic albums thematically, i.e.: children's stories, etc. But this is some sort of own record-set making...