The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Are there any "stock" methods out there for cataloging a record collection ?

(Primarily cylinders / 78 rpm discs)


I started to do this several years ago with a steno book, but found it a daunting task...

Having something in the way of a searchable computer database sounds appealing... ( though I am NOT a "computer geek"... )

It would be nice to have things cross-indexed by Title, Artist , Composer, Label, Format, etc...

My only previous experience in this realm was my work-study gig as a librarian in the music library at my small college 25 years ago, which ran on a card catalog system...

Any resources out there that might be helpful ?

Also, besides documenting the archive, is there an efficient system for actually placing/organizing the discs on the shelf ?

???

Thanks !

( Bump to top )


( Or does anyone even bother Catalogging ? )

That's why I bought a computer, long ago. It's been used to find and buy more records and lots of other stuff, but nary a record catalogued ....

I recently catalogued about 400 diamond discs using excel. It's great for that type of stuff because you can sort by disc number & side, title, artist, genre and pretty much anything else you want to.

It's pretty easy too, even for a novice. I'm no computer expert, believe me!

Something I've had planned for ages to do...but I just have never had the time to actually do it. I had planned on using microsoft access to create my own database. Perhaps one day I will get around to it.

S-B-H

I too catalog my collection in an Excel spreadsheet. It's kind of a slow process though. Surely someone has already created a front end user interface(GUI)to help make the process a little faster? Perhaps they would be willing to share?

Valecnik wrote:I recently catalogued about 400 diamond discs using excel. It's great for that type of stuff because you can sort by disc number & side, title, artist, genre and pretty much anything else you want to.

It's pretty easy too, even for a novice. I'm no computer expert, believe me!

Would you be willing to share a page as an example template ?

Sure send me your email address and I will send it to you.

I once started [in 1961] to list my records in a notebook, but found that to be a problem, as I got more records, keeping them in a book required re-writing whole pages as new records were added. I switched to a card file, and that worked much better. While the modern way is to use a computer, which can indeed be convenient, it can also be a disaster if you have an inopportune power failure, or an accidental key strike which can erase portions [or all] of your information. I don't trust it for that reason. I still have and use a manual typewriter for many projects, because things don't get easily erased there.