How do you organize your collections?

[Lucius1958]

What is this "organization" you speak of?

-Bill

[dzavracky]

Was bedeutet "Organize your collections", bitte?

It means what it says, George... or are you inferring that, like me, there is NO organization...

Let's just put it this way: If I shopped in my own collection more often I could have saved truckloads of money.

Shopped in my own collection

George,

Do you keep track of what you have? I know you have a lot of records, so I am not sure if that's practical with the amount you have

[JerryVan]

What is this "organization" you speak of?

-Bill

Thanks for asking. Saved me the embarrassment of doing it myself.

[phonosandradios]

There is something to be said for having a list of your records as more than once I bought a record only to find I already have it. I bet i'm not the only one this has happened to!

[BillH_NJ]

I am about halfway through creating a database for my primarily classical and opera collection. I find organizing on the shelf by performer or composer difficult since so many records have multiple performers or two composers on a double-sided record. I find that organizing by label and number at least provides one unique place on the shelf (although catalog numbers for HMV are a nightmare). Of course, I still have a couple thousand LPs organized that way that I have to remember since they aren’t catalogued and a recital LP may have 10 or more composers on it.

[gramophone-georg]

Shopped in my own collection

George,

Do you keep track of what you have? I know you have a lot of records, so I am not sure if that's practical with the amount you have

If I weren't so lazy I'd probably be more organized. I probably have 8- 10K records in my record room and probably another 5K in storage. That's not counting LPs.

EDIT: Damn, my wife just reminded me of about 3K more in the spare room.

Somebody help me...

That reminds me- I need to send you a PM about more.

[Frisco The Beagle]

Dzavracky thanks for posting the picture of your shelves. I have been wanting to put my records on shelves of some sort (instead of in the milk crates they are in now), and yours are very nice. Did you build them?

As far as organizing them, I am in the process of going through and sorting them into broad genres - big band/swing, country/western swing, comedy, Hawaiian, etc. Within these genres, they are sorted alphabetically by artist/band. I also have quite a few older records (1920's +/-) and not sure what genre to put them in. And then I have some categories such as "My Favorites" that cross all genre lines. This is a carry-over from using the old record albums for storage - I put my favorites in one album and labelled it as such.

Another collection I have is V-Disc's and those are pretty simple - just organize by the V-disc number. I have put together a spreadsheet (on google sheets) of the V-discs by number, also listing the artist/band and song titles, so I am able to sort by any of these descriptions. I "print" a new pdf file copy (not a hard copy) of this list every time I add new V-discs so it is pretty quick and easy to do. I realized pretty quickly I needed to do some kind of list so I didn't buy multiple copies of the same disc.

I will be following this thread as I am still looking for some good ideas on organizing and cataloging.

[dzavracky]

The shelves came from a local book store here in Knoxville. They were selling them really cheap, and since my dad has been collecting books for a long time, they were perfect. BUT once I began collecting records I needed a place to put them (not piles on the floor ). My dad and I went through and did some re-arranging and I now had two book cases for my records. Granted when I started the amount of records I had looked stupid on such a big shelf. But as many people here know, once you get one record... thousands soon follow .

An issue soon arose when I had filled the shelves.I had piles stacked on top of each other. Which made removing a record a very difficult. And the weight of the records was not only bending the shelves but also pushing apart the sides of the shelf! The only way to save the shelves was to modify them. So we went to home depot and got some wood (the vertical dividers). I had to then take ALL of the records down off the shelf and place them on the other side of the room where they wouldn't get smashed. We put each shelf on the floor and measured how tall we wanted each shelf to be. The bottom two are for 12 inch albums, the next 3 are tall enough for 10 inch albums and records, and the top shelf is tall enough for 12 inch records (not 12 inch albums though). We cut each piece of wood and screwed them into the shelves. Once both shelves were done, we stood them back up and put two screws through the top of the shelf into a stud behind the sheet rock (to keep them from tipping). Then all the records went back onto the shelves.. but this time I was able to stack them vertically.

My "list" of records is all over the place. When I first started I began a word document with all the titles assorted by label or genre. This was going good until I was able to get over 600 78's from an estate sale and I didn't feel like putting 1200 songs into the computer . (and the list at this point was about 30 pages long) So instead I began recording them. I got a 250 gb external drive and began recording. I am at 242 gb of recorded 78's right now!! So if I want something, it's really easy to search the drive for the file. And if I do want to get it off the shelf, I can search the file location which will tell me where the record is in the shelf. For example, if I wanted to listen to "you're the cream in my coffee" by the Broadway nitelites. I could either search the external drive or go to the Vivatonal section in the shelf. BUT the thing I like most about having them all recorded, is that listening to them is so easy. I don't always have to get it off the shelf, and there is no wear on the record. Really the best part is that I can put the recordings on my phone and take them with me in the car or wherever.

My edison DD's are all organized inside my B250. Granted I only have about 80 of them, so I still have space inside the cabinet for more. I am not sure what I will do when I exceed 100 because then I will have to put the extra's somewhere else. If anyone has a system/place they put their DD's I would like to know where.


I also have one a question I have been wondering about for awhile. When you get a record album, and there is nothing written on the index.... do you leave it blank or fill it out? I feel like filling out the index ruins the value of the album?

David

[Orchorsol]

I too try to organise similarly in alphabetical artist order---namely opera & classical vocal, classical instrumental, jazz & dance band, comedy & novelty etc. I am currently involved in the lengthy process (years !) of creating instant access spread sheets on the computer which are of huge and essential assistance when trying to remember if there is a certain record in the collection and exactly where it is to be found. The time taken in setting up such a system is amply repaid at later dates---hopefully for the rest of one's life ! I do, however, share epigramophone's reservations as to the longevity/reliabilty of computer systems ! Fingers crossed. Computer lists are also very helpful and easily emailable (is that a word ?) when friends wish to know what is contained in the collection. Duplicates are entered in red, again so as to be able to help others quickly. A further column denotes the fact that the disc has been uploaded to YouTube.

The genres have their own physical location in cabinets or custom-built racks around the house so I know where to start looking. Where possible, numbered storage pockets have a width of about 5 ½ inches which enable easy access in as much as there is never too much weight against any particular disk. Painted MDF in varying thicknesses has proved extremely useful and easy to manufacture in this respect. The use of numbered pockets affords a certain amount of flexibility as the collection grows. The idea for this came from the original EMG handbooks.

I long to see one of those elaborate EMG record storage cabinets in the flesh! I wonder if any have survived?

Quite similar here, I have separate sections for "serious" vocal, classical orchestral/instrumental, world/folk, gospel/blues, military bands, unusual labels - pretty much everything else including jazz, dance, light popular, novelty, comedy is in one huge lot, apart from three smallish subsections of favourites. All alphabetical by artist except the classical (by composer) and of course the label section.

I used to work in a laboratory, and around 25 years ago I started taking all my 78s in to gradually wash them in my lunchtime and I started putting them on an Excel spreadsheet way back then, so I have everything catalogued which is a boon, although it does rather expose degrees of obsessiveness (which most of us probably share)! I back the file up in several different locations.

It seems to me there's awkwardness whichever way one both catalogues and organises storage. Alphabetically - the many records with different artists become a problem - which side is the 'main' one? Numerically etc - one cannot simply go to a shelf and pull out a handful of the same artist or composer. Not too much of a problem for a modest collection, but right now the counting formula in my spreadsheet tells me I have exactly 18,998. I've had several phases of thinning out the dead wood over the years and another is coming!

Pictured is one of the small subsections of the main alphabetical lot, with some of the prime jazz separated out. Homemade MDF shelving. The two larger compartments to left and right aren't finished yet - the left has a dropdown door with a 1950s turntable inside, the right will have a speaker and a period amplifier.

[dzavracky]

I too try to organise similarly in alphabetical artist order---namely opera & classical vocal, classical instrumental, jazz & dance band, comedy & novelty etc. I am currently involved in the lengthy process (years !) of creating instant access spread sheets on the computer which are of huge and essential assistance when trying to remember if there is a certain record in the collection and exactly where it is to be found. The time taken in setting up such a system is amply repaid at later dates---hopefully for the rest of one's life ! I do, however, share epigramophone's reservations as to the longevity/reliabilty of computer systems ! Fingers crossed. Computer lists are also very helpful and easily emailable (is that a word ?) when friends wish to know what is contained in the collection. Duplicates are entered in red, again so as to be able to help others quickly. A further column denotes the fact that the disc has been uploaded to YouTube.

The genres have their own physical location in cabinets or custom-built racks around the house so I know where to start looking. Where possible, numbered storage pockets have a width of about 5 ½ inches which enable easy access in as much as there is never too much weight against any particular disk. Painted MDF in varying thicknesses has proved extremely useful and easy to manufacture in this respect. The use of numbered pockets affords a certain amount of flexibility as the collection grows. The idea for this came from the original EMG handbooks.

cations.

The counting formula in my spreadsheet tells me I have exactly 18,998.

I seriously did a double take on this. You have 19,000 records?? I thought I had a lot and I have about 4 thousand

Very nice shelves! I like the way they blend in with the room


David