How to Organize CD Collection?

toroddfuglesteg wrote: James wrote: So if you buy an album by an artist beginning with A, what do you do, Torodd? I use the rules as adopted by public archives and libraries + ProgArchives when it comes to archives. A followeb by B. Abs followed by Abt.   I do not go by genre. It is alphabeth, strictly.  I am a bit of a slave when it comes to this rule.  Edit: This is the same rule as Lenin once recommended when he ordered the removal of his enemies from this planet post October revolution. When that is good enough for him, it is good enough for me.

That's not what I was getting at.

I meant, if you buy an album by an artist/band beginning with A, how do you slot it into your system?  Do you have to move 100+ CDs to make it fit?

That's an awful lot of effort!

James wrote: toroddfuglesteg wrote: James wrote: So if you buy an album by an artist beginning with A, what do you do, Torodd? I use the rules as adopted by public archives and libraries + ProgArchives when it comes to archives. A followeb by B. Abs followed by Abt.   I do not go by genre. It is alphabeth, strictly.  I am a bit of a slave when it comes to this rule.  Edit: This is the same rule as Lenin once recommended when he ordered the removal of his enemies from this planet post October revolution. When that is good enough for him, it is good enough for me.  That's not what I was getting at. I meant, if you buy an album by an artist/band beginning with A, how do you slot it into your system?  Do you have to move 100+ CDs to make it fit? That's an awful lot of effort!

I have learnt the hard way to make a bit of a xtra space a the end of the bookshelf for new purchases. But before, a new purchase meant a lot of physical work during the archive phase, yes. 

I kind of have that system but my shelves aren't very wide, so I have to move the one on the end down to the next shelf and then do the same with the one on the end of that shelf until I somehow find some space.

I do try and leave some gaps at the end of my genres though for putting in CDs.

Slartibartfast wrote: For you younger folks the most important thing to do before your collection gets too big is catalog it. Artist Title Year Be. Yr. Month Co. No. Added Anderson, Laurie Homeland 2010 3/19/11 Stereolab Not Music 2011 4/20/11 Dead Can Dance Into the Labyrinth 1993 5/29/11 Dead Can Dance Toward the Within 1994 5/29/11 Black Mountain Wilderness Heart 2010 6/2/11 Mono Holy Ground: NYC Live 2003 6/2/11 Knifeworld Dear Lord, No Deal 2011 6/7/11 Phideaux Snowtorch 2010 6/8/11 Pineapple Thief, The Someone Here Is Missing 2009 6/8/11 Bass Communion Molotov And Haze 2008 6/9/11 Frith, Fred Eye To Ear III 2010 6/20/11 Radiohead King Of Limbs 2011 6/28/11 Reasoning, The Acoustically Speaking 2010 6/29/11 Reasoning, The Adverse Camber 2010 6/29/11 Davis, Miles Get Up With It 1974 7/1/11 Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins Scarcity Of Miracles, A 2011 7/1/11 Bjornstad/Darling/Rypdal/Christensen Sea, The 1994 7/12/11 Zorn, John Dreamers, The 2007 8/6/11 Djam Karet Heavy Soul Sessions, The 2009 8/10/11 Herd Of Instinct Herd Of Instinct 2011 8/10/11 Rhodes, Happy Equipoise 1993 8/10/11 Ukab Maerd Waiting Room, The 2010 8/10/11 Happy Rhodes Rhodes I 1986 8/15/11 Happy Rhodes Rhodes II 1986 8/15/11

I've found that if you put the biggest, largest and heaviest at the bottom and the thinnest, lightest and slipperiest at the top they stand less chance of toppling, not that it can ever be completely topple-proof without the use of glue; digipaks tend to present the greatest risk as they are the least rigid and most likely to deform under pressure, I have decided that these are best organised collectively and kept separate from jewel cases and box sets; colour is of course the most important factor when choosing a cataloguing system and spine colours often look the most esthetically pleasing when they are organised according to the colour wheel with complimentary colours used to harmonise the rows (or piles) of CDs with your home decor, though I should note here that the visible light spectrum, or rainbow as it is known, should be avoided as this tends to be garish and a little overused; you can organise your CDs by spine colour using the resistor colour code to encode important telephone numbers and credit card pins, which is handy should you suffer from an intermittent memory lapses, but not so good if you regularly get burgled by an electronics engineers, despicable miscreants that they are; another successful way of organising CDs is the front-to-back stacking system, here most loved and frequently played albums migrate to the front of the stacks while 'for completists only' and 'what was I thinking' discs percolate in a rear-wards direction, never to be seen again; organising by smell is not advised since ones sense of smell will deteriorate with age and localised pet odours can cause some CDs to be miss-catalogued, yet is should be noted that this can be an effective method with discs that are real stinkers and some that are really sweet sounding. However with all these cataloguing methods the most important factor is honing your own mental agility to remember where each individual recording is, especially when esoteric ordering is used to deliberately confuse and confound spouses, light-fingered visitors, small children and dexterous puppies.

Alphabetically by band then if I have more than one by the same band it goes chronology 

Same.  Most of my CDs are in big binders and basically serve as physical backups to my hard drive(s).

I'm about to dismantle my collection ... here's what I will do:

Alphabetically seems to be the best way to store my albums, i've tried in many ways before but  never have been satisfied with

So much boring......