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Help! How do you organize your Record Collection?


Dennie

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I now have well over 2000 albums and am trying to get some kind of organization to the madness.

Do you organize by genre? Jazz, Rock, Blues, Classical, Show Tunes, Country, World etc.? Or by alphabetical and not genre?

I now have two of these.......

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and I am hoping I can get most of them onto the shelves. But I may have to get a thrid one.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Dennie

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Well since my list is only pushing 300 I have them alphabetical. Which consist of four boxes sitting right next to each other and I made dividers for each letter. I also have them on excel and have that printed out so I know what I have and can just look and grab what I want to listen to.

James

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A-Z, right thru left, Jazz & Classical get their own place & 12" singles are in another place entirely. Special slot for new acquisitions so I don't forget & lose them in the general population.

If you put some wood strips at the back your records will not slip out of the Expedit, just remember to pre-drill the screw holes, you get one shot with IKEA particle shelving. Here's a mod I liked - http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2009/02/spin-it-with-some-colour.html

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I find that putting things in left top to right bottom in alphabetical order works best for me. I used to have classical, and everything else in two separate groupings (that genre thing you were talking about) but now I use the composer's, or performer's last name or the first word in the group name (The Rolling Stones goes under "R") in alphabetical order makes sense.

Interesting thing to consider!

George

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  1. Rock

    and Popular

  2. Classical
  3. Jazz
  4. Country

    AND Western

  5. Musicals

    and Soundtracks

  6. Ethnic
  7. Technical/Test

    recordings

  8. Miscellaneous
Alphabetical in each catagory
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My organizational system is reminiscent of the movie "High Fidelity". "Chronological? No... Not alphabetical... Nope. Autobiographical... Yep! I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in just 25 moves... And, if I wanted to find the song "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 pile but I didn't give it to them for personal reasons."

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Wow! Thanks everyone. I got the shelving put together. I instructions say "Takes two people to put together", but it was only me and my dog and she didn't help much. With some masking tape and logical thinking, they are finally together. All of my albums are on the floor and I am just going to start shelving them for now until I can sit down and review all of the choices I have.

Thanks for the great information!

Jim, since a lot of these collections were acquired over the last two years, I don't think your way of doing it is going to work for me. Especially since the last collection I got was over 1000 albums. My memory just isn't that good! [:S]

Keep the ideas coming and I am going to cancel my gym membership and just move albums for a work out! [:o]


Dennie

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Yeah, without opposing thumbs the dog is pretty much useless. Unless she can bring you a beer.

Me, I start by siphoning off the classical and jazz categories from my mostly rock/pop collection.

Then the LP or CD's are alphbetical by artist (or last name),

then chronological original release dates within that artist.

One exception to normal cataloging is that bands closely related to the main band appear after that band instead of off on their own.

For instance- Deep Purple appears in the D's and all of their albums are in chronological release date (with remasters appearing next to the originals). Trapeze/Glenn Hughes, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Ian Gillan Band, Tribute albums- all appear AFTER Deep Purple since they are solo releases or related efforts by members of that band. Makes it easier to locate them than hunting through the stacks.

After these are Dire Straits, The Doors, Dream Theater, Bob Dylan...

post-10755-13819465814426_thumb.jpg

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My collection is sorted by alphabet, but not in static form. Within each letter I try to group music by genre or a particular instrument. Say within the letter "B" , Roy Buchanan is next to Gatemouth Brown, Tony Bennett is next to Chet Baker. I also attempt to segue the letter with similar music, for example John Coltrane is followed by Miles Davis, Jefferson Airplane is followed by Jorma Kaukonen. Band names or artists using a Nom de Plume are filed under the first letter, Jethro Tull is under "J", Dr. John is under "D", Taj Mahal under "T" etc... works for me.

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Feel free to swat me down for getting too philisophical here but I strongly suggest in the hobby of record listening (as opposed to collecting) of keeping the size of your library manageable. I think I currently have under 1,000 records and I'm often trying to find ways to let some of the fish back into the stream, so to speak. You can always re-sell, as well as pass some you really enjoy to a friend.

Digital music management is set up much better for quick, random access, song-by-song of a large collection, if that's your thing. The joy of vinyl, I think, with the set up, maintenance, and time involved is to savor your records. Keeping the numbers down helps records not get lost and un-played.

Just my two cents. And for the record, I go by genre then artist alpha (Pop/Rock/Soul/HipHop/R&B, Jazz, Blues, Jamaican, World, Classical, plus a section for my deejayable records which include the most 12"s as well.)

Best, Seth

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Whatever default system I had been using for years is finally breaking down and I need to find the time to do a major overhaul. The one system that has worked fairly well has been organizing jazz alphabetically with a few special (oversize) sections for particular artists. Classical is separated roughly by early and modern and needs better alphabetizing. "Movie"/LA "jazz" has its own shelf and includes not only soundtracks but certain arrangers like Rugolo, Esquivel, Schiffrin, Sauter-Finegan, (and even Kenton) and some easy listening and some exotica is thrown in here etc. Mosaic sets have there own shelf. Latin music is the problem area and is separated by many sub categories: Cuban (according to which trip) , NY (special sections for TP, EP, TR, etc.) , West Coast, Folkloric, Percussion, Brazilllian, Charanga, Son, Merengue, Budget labels, special rareties, special pianists, oversize sections for particular artists eg. Tjader etc. In other words, the various latin genres do not lend themselves particularly to global alphabetical for me. Folk, Country, Rock, Pop, and random thrift store finds hardly ever get any organizing attention but there is a clump of George Jones in there somewhere. There are several sections of uncategorized thrift store finds. The main problem is that little special sections and special rareties eventually are not so special anymore and should be included in the larger categories or even thrown into alphabetical sections. It just seems weird to throw some things together, but the crisis is being able to find an example when needed in a reasonable amount of time. Ten inch LPs have their own shelf and include all categories. 45 rpm EPs are in their own box. 78s are either in albums or stacked (not so many that I can't find what I am looking for when needed). CDs roughly seperated into Jazz, latin modern, latin historical, and everything else. Tape cassettes have there own shelf which I can see at a glance. Looking for records here is at best like recreating a trip to a well stocked record store or at worst (although fun) searching through stacks at a thrift store except there has been previous preselection insuring whatever is found will be good. The whole collection is a major archive.

It all needs work and many more rainy days.....

C&S

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I use a method that noone else likes or thinks is useful for them. First, because I am 90% classical, I separate out all non-classical LPs and put them in their own shelf, about 5% - 10% of my total shelf space. Then, I segregate the classical BY LP BRAND. That usually makes it easy, since some brands have distinctive spines -- DG's yellow, Angel's burgundy, for example. That way, it LOOKS much better organized, and I can quickly go to that brand's LPs.

The only disadvantage is if I forget where I put a cluster of LPs like the distinctive London Super Anaolg Discs (I'm out of London space!).

This makes it MUCH easier to alphabetize within each brand by composer, since there are FAR fewer LPs by, say, Mozart, in just London's LPs, and ditto in DG's LPs, etc., than if I put all Mozart's LPs together! I also have a bunch of LPs from random, little-known brands, so I devote one shelf to those and alphabetize by composer within that group.

I'd HATE to alphabetize ALL my classical LP's by composer!!!

I started doing it this way because I usually remember the brand of the LP I'm looking for.

Think about it, and compare this with other methods, if you have a lot of LPs from a few brands and are tired of dealing with alphabetization issues. After all, each brand by itself is going to have many fewer LPs to alphabetize.

Larry

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I use a method that noone else likes or thinks is useful for them. First, because I am 90% classical, I separate out all non-classical LPs and put them in their own shelf, about 5% - 10% of my total shelf space. Then, I segregate the classical BY LP BRAND. That usually makes it easy, since some brands have distinctive spines -- DG's yellow, Angel's burgundy, for example. That way, it LOOKS much better organized, and I can quickly go to that brand's LPs.

The only disadvantage is if I forget where I put a cluster of LPs like the distinctive London Super Anaolg Discs (I'm out of London space!).

This makes it MUCH easier to alphabetize within each brand by composer, since there are FAR fewer LPs by, say, Mozart, in just London's LPs, and ditto in DG's LPs, etc., than if I put all Mozart's LPs together! I also have a bunch of LPs from random, little-known brands, so I devote one shelf to those and alphabetize by composer within that group.

I'd HATE to alphabetize ALL my classical LP's by composer!!!

I started doing it this way because I usually remember the brand of the LP I'm looking for.

Think about it, and compare this with other methods, if you have a lot of LPs from a few brands and are tired of dealing with alphabetization issues. After all, each brand by itself is going to have many fewer LPs to alphabetize.

Larry

Classical IS a toughie. You have composers and conductors, LP's with multiple composers, box sets etc. There's about no 'typical' method that works with classical. Larry's collection may be organized like no other but it LOOKS COOL AS HECK because you have bunches of similar looking spine labels. Plus since he's purchased most new himself, he knows a lot about the issue by the label it's on. Works splendidly for him.

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Classical IS a toughie. You have composers and conductors, LP's with multiple composers, box sets etc. There's about no 'typical' method that works with classical.

My father has over 20,000 classical albums, no one in the family understands his filing system but he can walk up to a shelf & pull out the right record in about 5 seconds!

Don't even ask about the 78s.

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