The not lost but hard to find art of vinyl records

@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.

@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.

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,

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

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

I have also started using the Discogs "Collection" feature to catalog my modest collection.  The most time-consuming aspect is identifying the correct pressing from the "deadwax" markings.  The Discogs feature allows you to write in your own comments about each record, which is quite useful.  Using this feature will assist if you or your heirs ever want to sell any of your records.

Physically, I have an idiosyncratic way of organizing my LPs.  They are more or less organized by genre, year of initial release and country of origin.  One of the advantages of this is that if I pick a late '60s British-rock album to play, there are similar albums nearby that might constitute a good choice for the next to be played.  You don't get this by simply alphabetizing the collection.  I suppose one could use Discogs to achieve what my physical organization allows, but I wouldn't want to have to pull out my laptop every time I want to play a record.

I have an extraordinarily good memory, so that probably helps in using my physical-organization system.  I remember what year many of my albums were released.  If that is unimportant to you, you could certainly try a variation of my system, perhaps just organizing by genre, country and then alphabetically (by artist) within each genre.

P.S... Sorry, but the photo of my LP collection Dividers did not properly link.

Consequently, I added to my SYSTEM PHOTOS... 

I hope this is helpful.