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The not lost but hard to find art of vinyl records

Hello fellow goners, 

I'm looking for some advice and guidance today. For the last six years or so I've rediscovered the joy of vinyl. Over that time i've added and upgraded an analog branch to my streaming only system. Currently it's based on an origin live deck and arm with a few different cartridges, my favorites are hanna sl and an AT-VM760xSL. 

Over this time, I've also managed to acquire a modest collection of records which now fill a few of those ikea shelving units. Now some of you might be thinking aww I remember when I got started. :-) I did say modest. However with just this collection, it's become difficult to account which records or even which pressing or  pressings are a part of the collection. Specially and fortunately, when you have friends and family who know about your passion and want to contribute with purchases for special occasions. Or come over and want to hear album X to which I usually respond with browse the shelves and pick out something you wan to hear. 

To help with this, I started using a spreadsheet of artist, titles and a few other pieces of information but quickly ran into issues with the native spellchecker and my own horrible spelling mistakes. Leading to some funny and not so funny things in the list. 

So I'm wondering for those of you out there with collections of your own, how do you manage it? Does it just reside on a shelf? In your memory (if this is true do you have room for mine too? :-)

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and advice.

david  

dsv1
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,049 posts
 

My 3000 plus records are all over the place, some stored on shelves, some behind couch, on floor, under desk, you name it. I forget what I even own lol. Someday I will get organized and weed a few out. I am a border line holder. 

o_holter
993 posts
 

Don't be to hard on yourself. "All over the place" is OK. Music, when it engages us, goes beyond predefined categories.  

dsv1 OP
11 posts
 

@o_holter so true, so true. 

Thanks everyone this is a diverse and excellent set of suggestions. Keep them coming while I look into the various options from discogs, clz, etc. Even @o_holter built their own. awesome. 

thanks so much. very helpful.

inagroove
260 posts
 

@dsv1 

Hi,

Because my collection is so large, I entered everything into Excel and occasionally back-up my file. Simple, easy and private.

Regarding spelling errors, you own the LP and ALL of the data are there ;-)

As a bonus, spell-check is not an issue in Excel.

3.5 keep United Artists brown & tan UAS 5535 vg+/vg 124 S to R 3/3 McLean, Don (American Pie) LP 1 Stereo

 

Regarding organization: I apply peel-n-stick letters to old LPs that have been glued into old jackets, with ~3" left showing.  I found this to be a fun, easy way to alphabetize my collection.

 

Finally, I deliberately AVOID Discogs:

Too much work AND you give them the right to distribute your personal info, including your musical tastes to the world (this is a AI-marking dream...). 

Have fun with that!

To add insult to injury, if your LP is not in the Discogs database, you must manually enter all of the details or the Disc-police will deny your work. 

By getting users to enter the data, they built their database and profit from everyone else's labor - - making million$ annually, yet none of US get paid for doing the hard work for them  :-(  

Feeling used yet?

Thanks for the rant ;-)

Good luck,

inagroove
260 posts
 

P.S.  my collection peaked at ~4,300 LPs.

Here is a photo of my LP collection dividers...

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