Best Ways to Organize a Classical Record LP Collection ?

Very helpful posts - thanks.

Hi Johnnyb53

I had my CDs organized by birth of composer and my son (when he was around 10) reorganized them by the color of the spine of the jewel case, which essentially means they were organized by label regardless of period, performers, or composer. It was a daunting task but I eventually got them reorganized by composer date of birth.

That is quite a feat for a 10 year old. Imagine how you would of felt if he did that with your records and was manhandling them. I have the boxes on two floors now away from view. I am going to need more shelving !
I am trying to decide between the ease of flipping through the records (much preferred) over storing albums like books in the shelving. The many box sets are not a problem this way, but the singles; I know they just won't get played as much this way with me. They become archived and then lost. I want to see the whole album face when flipping through it. I think now my wife doing me a favor by pulling the Deutsche Grammophon singles, and filing almost two boxes was a mistake :^(

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Hi Paulparsons - you said something that hit home with me. (btw - welcome to AudioGon as a poster)

Yes, definitely organize by birth year of the composer. That way you can get a visual feel of the progression of centuries of music, and understand which composers wrote during the same period, and which ones influenced those who were born later.

.....

Filing alphabetically is the lazy man's way, essentially pointless except for convenience. Is there really any sense in having Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner next to each other, when what they primarily have in common is the letter B?

Filing by label is valid if you collect by label and when music is not your main concern. But why have to go to dozens of different sections to find all your Beethoven?

I have always been the type to listen to whole records regardless of genre. I want to get to know the music and artists and feel at times, the music that doesn't get air play, is many times the best stuff. So I feel the extra effort to do this would in the end bring me a lot more actual music enjoyment and learning enjoyment; getting to know the Composers and as you said, seeing how those that came later were influenced by those before.
Thanks for links in your post. So I went to the website source and copied and pasted the referenced composer list into a spreadsheet.

Holy Moly, 1100 friggin Composer entries !!!

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Bdp24 - Was thinking some more about what you said earlier about Longhair.

You can see TV clips from the 1950s, in which what is now called Classical was then referred to as "serious"---as opposed to Pop---or "longhair"---a pre-Beatles term!---music)

I'm not so sure about this Longhair comment.  

The Beatles.

http://verygoodmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/bands_the_beatles.jpg

Beethoven

http://assets.classicfm.com/2009/04/ludwig-van-beethoven-1233160023.jpg

Bach

http://cp91279.biography.com/1000509261001/1000509261001_1707045537001_BIO-Biography-17-Composers-Jo...

So who has the longer hair?   What is it about those B's ? 

oh oh ...I am getting a funny feeling about this......
The thread appears to be taking on, dare I say it.....audiophile attributes.
But with opinions that show real logic behind them. You guys are making this difficult.

The smell of vinyl has permeated that side of the house's main floor. I think its causing some hallucinations. Maybe its because I'm allergic to mold.

I think, deep down, my subconscious is making me want to make up for being a bad music theory student. Make my past teachers proud. So I printed this off

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d4/c8/9e/d4c89ead18950e7594d30e2f0ed3edda.jpg

and stuck it on the large bookcase just installed.
It made me feel ....good.
Definitely not as extensive as Paul Parsons list. This one at least gives a glimmer of hope. Small steps.....

But those B's really make it easy to start doing this alphabetically, don't they. And I have to admit. Those previously mentioned Deutsche Grammophon lps; those shiny yellow gleaming (though thin) lps, pulled earlier, now are temporarily together and taking up two slots in the bookcase; they look kinda cool with the sun hitting them. 
How ........tube like....... how audiophile !

Sundays Surprise Find.

The Sound of Jazz - 1958 Columbia Six Eye.

http://www.popculturesignatures.com/bihocobaauts.html

No not mine. My copy is in much better shape; but it is not signed by Billie Holiday and Count Basie :^(

Mono cartridge, well lack thereof, rears its head again. So how many records does it take to warrant getting one?    
need more coffee.

CT- right. I think you have to ask what your purpose in organizing is. Is it so you, as the present owner of these records, can find them easily? Or are you interested in working at the Library of Congress? I get curation, and Paul is no doubt correct insofar as musical history is concerned, but it would seem you’ll be spending more time curating than listening. I reorganized about 12k records a while ago, while getting rid of several thousand and eventually adding quite a few more. With classical, which is only part of the mix, I segregated some by label- EMI ASD, Lyrita, Decca/London, RCA doggie and Mercury Living Presence; I then alphabetized a large quantity (by composer)- say 20 linear feet; I also set aside one shelf for typical audiophile warhorses, and another for what I consider to be banal audiophile crap, which includes some direct to disc, not limited to classical. This, obviously, has nothing to do with the rock/pop or blues/jazz/folk (which are organized alphabetically, except where some have been segregated by label). That still leaves me with thousands of records that have yet to be organized in any meaningful way, from old MHS and DG to mid-’80s Euro-pop. It’s sort of triage, in my view.
I organized the stuff I was most interested in listening to, or was readily identifiable and it’s still taken years. Electronically cataloging with meta-data- a whole other thing. I like the fact that something like Discogs is basically already ’populated’ with the data (right or wrong), so you merely have to add the item to your collection, but are there similar "populated" databases that comprehensively address classical music? (I think of Discogs more for pop). Creating a database, with deep metadata from scratch, would be a huge endeavor.

PS: Paul- welcome to the madhouse! 

Hi Whart - thanks for your thought provoking post.

"as the present owner of these records"

a profound thought....indeed these records will out live me. Does everyone have a plan for their records ?

Some answers to your questions and where I am at. And oops long post - got away on me ..sorry. Have made lots of progress. This thread has really helped to make me put in focus those things I need to be aware of in how these records were produced, since classical is so different than that of other genres. This has saved me time. And time is the most important thing. Also the good weather is here, and what is in the garage is calling me too.

Whart - Is it so you, as the present owner of these records, can find them easily?

YES

Whart - Or are you interested in working at the Library of Congress?

:^) ...lol.... Congress ? As a Canadian if I hadn’t watched Netflix’s House of Cards over the winter (talk about addiction) I would be a little confused by this.

I was actually thinking about this "Library" the other day.
Never worked in a library before but, I think I now know what it must have felt like to deal with returned books !
I have found Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Bach to name a few - in probably 15 + different boxes each. This is where I am at and what I have managed to do so far.

Pre-sorting.
First I had to get the records out of view. So I split up the boxes into two groups upstairs and downstairs. Shelving added to each floor up and down.
fwiw - After many years my wife banished me to our basement which for good audio plays out really well, so I don’t mind.
I have two music rooms set up adjacent to one another downstairs - can be seen in my virtual page. The main room always had shelving. I added shelving to room 2. That makes three with the shelving upstairs.

Whart
I get curation, and Paul is no doubt correct insofar as musical history is concerned, but it would seem you’ll be spending more time curating than listening. I reorganized about 12k records a while ago, while getting rid of several thousand and eventually adding quite a few more. With classical, which is only part of the mix, I segregated some by label- EMI ASD, Lyrita, Decca/London, RCA doggie and Mercury Living Presence;

I then alphabetized a large quantity (by composer)- say 20 linear feet; I also set aside one shelf for typical audiophile warhorses, and another for what I consider to be banal audiophile crap, which includes some direct to disc, not limited to classical.

Good info. I really like this word curation.
So the first sort had to be alphabetical in order to bring the composers together in two locations. This excludes special labels which have just found their way together. They look nice together. I do still like the idea of sorting by history / birth dates, later if I choose, if I ever get there.

The collection itself.
There is some organization for off genre non-classical that I found, but for the classical - No such luck, all over the place. The two sets of boxes upstairs/downstairs have mostly been sorted and filed into the two locations. This part is complete. Now the next sort should bring the Composers from two locations together into one.

I am aware and coming across, the album types that people have mentioned here that I needed to deal with. This was really helpful as it made me look out for them and not get frustrated. Like records with one Conductor and multiple composers; and Artists (i.e .piano player Perahia / Lupu ) with one & multiple composers on a record.

Some specialty categories I have found together include Organ related albums, Flamenco, Classical Guitar, Scott Joplin/Ragtime, Big Band,
There are enough of these lps - a box each, that I can now say I collect them. lol.
A large opera grouping more than I will ever need. fwiw I am located near Toronto where I was born. The city’s Little Italy is world famous. If I choose to unload some opera later there is a big web demand for it here from those that grew up with this music playing in the house.

I think the fellow coordinating the records for the elderly owner grabbed the Jazz as I have only come across a few. :^(
The great part is as I continue to plow through, I pull 6 or 7 interesting looking lps each day, and listen to them at end of day, many unknown labels from USSR - Russian, Czechoslovakian, etc...
With all the records, googling the label plus some album info brings up discogs or ebay. I copy and paste the info into an excel spreadsheet to which I color code the title to tell me how I liked the performance, quality condition of the vinyl, and the mastering job (does the music explode out from the grooves).
The good records / performances are coded green and are filed in the first bookcase in the main listening room so I can find them. The others are filed right now alphabetically in the other bookcase downstairs. Doing the spreadsheet is important as it is helping me learn the music. Composer, Work, Conductor, City orchestra, etc...

Have a full box of this music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAtL7n_-rc

I like....

Also found a few Janis Joplin lps. Being born in the 60’s, I know of her and the music - meaning I know to hear it on the radio; but never actually bought any albums myself. So I did some digging.

http://static.robbreport.com/sites/default/files/images/articles/2015Sep/1681506//janis-joplin-porsc...

I like....