Get Me A Librarian... And A Library
My CD collection is starting to preoccupy me. Not the music - though there are always three or four earworms vying for headspace, even when I'm not actually listening to anything. No, it's the sheer logisitical nightmare of Owning A Large CD Collection that's tying my brain in knots at the moment.
Once upon a time, I only bought and listened to - broadly speaking - pop and rock albums, be it folk-rock, prog-rock, punk-rock or rawk-rock. The old vinyl collection lived in two large vinyl-coated LP-cases, which bookended 2-foot row of those albums which wouldn't fit in the cases. No problem.
Then I switched to CDs and, simultaneously, started getting into (again, broadly speaking) classical music. Planning ahead, I bought three glass-doored shelf units which would hold about 600 CDs in total. One for classical, two for pop/rock/whatever. No problem.
This was somewhere around 1988. Seven years later, the units were getting a bit on the full side, plus my wife-to-be had moved in, and two CD collections were beating as one. A short while later, we moved house, and bought three much more spacious CD-shelving units. These beauties would easily hold 1500 CDs. Surely that would see us through to our dotage?
Er... no, actually. We got into world/roots music. I got into jazz, and also discovered the wonders of eBay stored searches. Areas of our bookshelves had already been annexed for storing those big box-sets that wouldn't fit the CD shelving. Suddenly these was no space for any more CDs, and there was nowhere to put any more tall CD-shelf units. Eek! Time for desperate measures!
I launched a three-prong attack: first, I bought a load of those jewel-cases for double-CDs. The ones which are only the same thickness as a single-CD case. These replaced about 70 of the old-style double-thickness 2-CD cases. Second, we scoured the shelves for freebie compilation CDs which we'd simply kept out of pure hoarding instinct but never listened to more than once, plus those "mistake" CDs - bands by whom we'd heard one song which turned out to be atypical, bands who'd turned out a dud album we'd bought for "completeness". That trawl netted about 100 CDs we could safely pass onto the charity shops. Thirdly, I decided to add a third category to the filing system: jazz would have its own storage area, for which I evicted books from three shelves. These three measures gave us another 400 CDs-worth of grace.
But now things are nearing "tilt" again. We're probably up around the 2000 CD mark now, and there's probably room for about another 50 or 60 before something has to give. The books are starting to look nervous!
I've contemplating buying some of these 264-disc CD wallets (which I already use for discs of burned radio comedy), each of which could comfortably hold 132 CDs plus their booklets. But I really don't like the thought of having to haul a great big case of discs around every time I want to play a single disc. It seems clumsy somehow. Or I could buy up a ton of those slimline CD cases that are only about half the thickness of the traditional jewel case. But the back-inserts wouldn't fit them properly, thereby screwing up the process of edge-browsing. Clear another ghetto amongst the bookshelves, maybe for "Folk" or "World" music? No, no, no - there are already far too many confusing cases of crossover, where I can't decide whether Jamie Cullum goes under Jazz or Pop/Rock, or whether Jacques Loussier's Bach discs go under jazz or classical.
Or maybe I should just stop buying CDs. But that really IS thinking the unthinkable.
Once upon a time, I only bought and listened to - broadly speaking - pop and rock albums, be it folk-rock, prog-rock, punk-rock or rawk-rock. The old vinyl collection lived in two large vinyl-coated LP-cases, which bookended 2-foot row of those albums which wouldn't fit in the cases. No problem.
Then I switched to CDs and, simultaneously, started getting into (again, broadly speaking) classical music. Planning ahead, I bought three glass-doored shelf units which would hold about 600 CDs in total. One for classical, two for pop/rock/whatever. No problem.
This was somewhere around 1988. Seven years later, the units were getting a bit on the full side, plus my wife-to-be had moved in, and two CD collections were beating as one. A short while later, we moved house, and bought three much more spacious CD-shelving units. These beauties would easily hold 1500 CDs. Surely that would see us through to our dotage?
Er... no, actually. We got into world/roots music. I got into jazz, and also discovered the wonders of eBay stored searches. Areas of our bookshelves had already been annexed for storing those big box-sets that wouldn't fit the CD shelving. Suddenly these was no space for any more CDs, and there was nowhere to put any more tall CD-shelf units. Eek! Time for desperate measures!
I launched a three-prong attack: first, I bought a load of those jewel-cases for double-CDs. The ones which are only the same thickness as a single-CD case. These replaced about 70 of the old-style double-thickness 2-CD cases. Second, we scoured the shelves for freebie compilation CDs which we'd simply kept out of pure hoarding instinct but never listened to more than once, plus those "mistake" CDs - bands by whom we'd heard one song which turned out to be atypical, bands who'd turned out a dud album we'd bought for "completeness". That trawl netted about 100 CDs we could safely pass onto the charity shops. Thirdly, I decided to add a third category to the filing system: jazz would have its own storage area, for which I evicted books from three shelves. These three measures gave us another 400 CDs-worth of grace.
But now things are nearing "tilt" again. We're probably up around the 2000 CD mark now, and there's probably room for about another 50 or 60 before something has to give. The books are starting to look nervous!
I've contemplating buying some of these 264-disc CD wallets (which I already use for discs of burned radio comedy), each of which could comfortably hold 132 CDs plus their booklets. But I really don't like the thought of having to haul a great big case of discs around every time I want to play a single disc. It seems clumsy somehow. Or I could buy up a ton of those slimline CD cases that are only about half the thickness of the traditional jewel case. But the back-inserts wouldn't fit them properly, thereby screwing up the process of edge-browsing. Clear another ghetto amongst the bookshelves, maybe for "Folk" or "World" music? No, no, no - there are already far too many confusing cases of crossover, where I can't decide whether Jamie Cullum goes under Jazz or Pop/Rock, or whether Jacques Loussier's Bach discs go under jazz or classical.
Or maybe I should just stop buying CDs. But that really IS thinking the unthinkable.
posted by PaulV at 1.3.05
3 Comments:
Can I suggest that you use clear plastic wallets for CDs and then store them in the type of box one can easily find in IKEA or similar? Although this doesn't address the issue of what to do with the inserts, you could probably file them between each wallet, and use Post-it index markers for easy browsing. Works for our rather large collection of *ahem* TV shows.
Shelves with wheels. That's what you need.
I was about to suggest wallets, and then noticed caro1 beat me to it. The plastic ones are quite expensive, but Staples offer the paper ones at a reasonable price. Presumably, you'll wrap the wallet inside the original CD insert, so you don't lose all the track listings?
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