Every shelf has 5-6" of empty space at the end. When this fills up stuff get stacked flat, on top. When this annoys me enough I do a complete reshuffling to get everything in its proper place.Originally Posted by Hobo Chang Ba
Yes, it's a pain in the butt but it's the only way I know to organize stuff without losing track.
I have some space at the end of each row.
I have a space for where I keep the latest new stuff (if they're CDs; vinyl gets filed immediately since I have so much less of it). Then I'll periodically take those 5-6 discs and do a re-shuffle. I don't ever leave any space, because then I become confused as to whether or not I left something out somewhere or if someone borrowed something.
I usually leave a little space here and there for new acquisitions. I've stopped doing that. I've been on a budget-imposed buying moratorium for the past couple years but that should end next year. Then I'll just buy another Boltz CD rack and maybe, just maybe, another vinyl stand for my office.
My books are organized in an order that makes sense only in my head. There are five solid wood bookcases upstairs and they're somewhat grouped by genre, somewhat by what fits on a particular shelf, how important that author is to me, etc. Downstairs there's a couple of cheapo shelves and a floor-to-ceiling room spanning plywood monstrosity that my dad had built. The organization on those shelves is even more chaotic but it all makes sense to me.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Imagine the difficulty of adding new releases if you organized your collection the way Archie Patterson does: all the bands with five releases in one spot, six releases in another, etc. So when a band releases a long-awaited new album, not only do you have to find room for that release, you have to move their entire catalog to a different shelf!
My dad has another system, which I think would be really a pain in the ass for me. He has them sorted on label.
I alphabetize it all and then chronologically.
Bill
She'll be standing on the bar soon
With a fish head and a harpoon
and a fake beard plastered on her brow.
That's when a database comes in handy
He doesn't have a database, but books http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Brian/BrianWho.phpThat's when a database comes in handy
Hmmm, never heard of it. Good software is it?
Edit: just viewed the videos. Looks very powerful, and nicely laid out... but it could easily become a black hole, sucking in data until the singularity. I won't live long enough to enter all this data on my collection!
Last edited by rcarlberg; 02-08-2017 at 02:49 PM.
I've heard of people doing this. I've never figured out what the benefit was.
I don't know the software. My dad just has the original books, several versions of them in which he notes his CD's.
I kind of do that at one point in my music breakdown classifying. I'll want to keep the Impulse! label albums I have on the same shelf
In terms of books, it's much more present as a criteria (as book are much less formatted or standardized)
I'd first class them by theme: fiction, graphic novels, music, geopolitical, art & society, history and whatever else.
Then partly on format (size) but also by label/editor >> this is also helping to give some kind of esthetical (as in decoration) semblance, but also rationalisation of shelf space.
Then only by author, and generally chronologically inside the author.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
In terms of cataloguing your collection, Microsoft Access at one time included a Record Collection sample database.
Hmm, I just tried the latest version of ACCESS. Looks like they no longer do it. I suppose if I wanted to spend the time I could modify one of the other inventory lists. I used to have two long word documents I kept. Albums/CDs I owned and ones I wanted. Haven't kept either of them up in years. The ones I want now are in wishlists at various vendors.
One name has always befuddled me when it comes to filing: Howling Wolf. Under 'H', under 'W', under 'Chester Burnett'?
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Howling Wolf is filed under H because it is a stage name, just like Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull or Marilyn Manson (well I guess that last one is pretty easy).
I think the Record Collection template came with Access 97. Odd that it seems so difficult to find on the net, you'd think someone would have a download available somewhere.
Good point -- but where does it stop? Elton John under E, J or D? David Bowie under D, B or J?
The test I've always used is this: is the stage name used for a PERSON or for a BAND? If it's a PERSON, I file David Bowie under B. It it's for a BAND I file Jethro Tull under J.
Where it gets tricky is Alice Cooper.
How do you file the album of the band starting with "The"?
By whatever the other word is.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Except A Triggering Myth which, for some reason, I've filed under A.
So many bands started out as thes and later dropped the article: The Pink Floyd, The Small Faces, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Mandrake Memorial, The The. If you want to keep all their releases together you have to ignore the article.
Exceptions -- for me anyway -- are most bands with articles in a foreign language (La Düsseldorf, Il Monstro, Il Berlione, Le Orme, L'Ensemble Raye, etc.).
Last edited by rcarlberg; 02-11-2017 at 01:42 PM.
Here's another dilemma, how do you handle spaces? Is "A Triggering Myth" filed before Eivind Aarset or after Chet Atkins?
That's something I put under T, but either works as long as it's done consistently.
The The?By whatever the other word is.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks