Organizing Your Record Collection
The other day, our good friends Nick and Jennifer were visiting. As often happens when they stop over, I put a record on and we talked, over and/or about the music we were listening to. Or about something else...
On this occasion, however, something funny happened. Instead of just pulling a record off the shelf, I happened to refer to the printed list of records I have put together, a multipage print-out of the spreadsheet I started years ago for my collection, clipped together in a plastic report sleeve to protect it. From what I am not sure...anyway.
"What's that?" Jennifer inquired, smiling broadly, "Is that a list of your records?"
"Yes," I squeaked. "I have a spreadsheet that has all of my albums on it," I continued bashfully.
Jennifer laughed. "No way, dude,!" I smiled, not knowing what to say. She continued, "Paul, you should write about how you keep track of your records on your blog."
Petra added, "Its the first thing he does after cleaning and re-sleeving his latest purchases, adding them to his spreadsheet!"
Fortunately, conversation shifted to more pressing matters and my list was once again soon forgotten by our guests. But, I began to think about writing about my list making. It never occurred to me that you, dear reader, might be interested in my madness!
The way I see it, I have to keep track of what I have collected. Don't I? Don't you? When you are an obsessive collector like me, it is what it is!
What is the point of collecting something if you are not keeping track of what you are collecting. What is the point of collecting anyway? Well, that is a subject for another time!
In addition to the name of the artist and record, my spreadsheet also listed the release date, producer, label, genre, and where I bought or found the album. I created a simple Excel spreadsheet which made it easy to add information, clicking the alphabetizing function to keep the collection in a sort of alphanumeric order. It was primitive but seemed to serve its purpose. At least at first.
The nice thing about a spreadsheet program is its simplicity. You can add to it easily and re-order the contents of it in a few different ways. For instance, you can click on the header of the 'Year' column and re-order your collection chronologically. Or you can group all the records produced by the same producer, or released by the same label.
A spreadsheet is a good place to start when you start your record collection.
But my conversation with Nick and Jennifer made me think about why I complied my collection in a list, and what kind of information it contained. Did it give me an accurate count of the number of records in my collection? Not really, because I inserted alphabetical dividers within the spreadsheet making it clearer where A turns into B, but muddying the waters of exactly how many records I own.
I had what might be called an approximate idea of how many records I owned and I kept track of them on a spreadsheet! Something was seriously wrong!!!
Basically, I would look at the number in the left column, subtract 26 and conclude that that was an accurate count. Probably some of you know how to formulate the cells to tabulate an accurate count, but not me.
So, I began to think about what I wanted the list to do for me. First, count up my records accurately - that would be nice! Since I like to read about the artists in my collection, I also thought it would be cool if the spreadsheet cells could be directly linked to a wiki page about the artist or the band. How about linking or embedding photographs of the album covers in my list? How about links to videos - or record reviews online?
I was really excited about what I wanted this list to do. No idea how to do it, but I had a lot of ideas....
Recently, I took over my wife's old MacBook Pro and began having 'One-to-One' sessions with 'geniuses' at the local Apple store. Last week, I met with Jonathan who told me that Bento, Apple's database program, would let me do all of those things - and probably more. There is a free 30 day trial available, so I downloaded the trial and started to play with it this evening.
Pretty amazing.
Within an hour or so, I had watched the tutorials and modified a standard template to create a customized database for my record collection. In addition the basic information I used to have in my spreadsheet, which I imported into Bento and which forms the basis of the database, I created a lot of additional cells. Every entry in my database now has a place for an image of the album cover, a biographical text, links to a wiki page, to YouTube videos, to online reviews and to other blogs about the album. I have already created about a dozen of these 'enhanced' entries. Didn't take long, but the results are really cool.
So, if you are serious about organizing your record collection, you might want to set up a spreadsheet or, better yet, a database with links to all kinds of information about your records. Then, the next time you listen to that obscure David Ackles album in your collection, you can click a button in your database and see a YouTube video of a vintage performance, or read Richie Unterberger's liner notes for the re-issue of Ackles' Bernie Taupin produced 'American Gothic.' Or...well, you get the idea.
Any questions, let me know.
Have fun, keep listening - and get organized!
Posted by Vinyl Record Architect at 5/30/2011 8:27 PM 
Categories: David Ackles, organizing records, record collection, vinyl records, record collecting
Categories: David Ackles, organizing records, record collection, vinyl records, record collecting
Hi, after first using a couple other sites and programs, and being dissatisfied for various reasons, I've been using "Google Docs" online spreadsheet program for about eight months now, and it's been working out well for me.
One thing that's nice is, since I've had the list, I have learned a lot of facts/trivia about the albums because now I've gotten into the habit of researching most of them at the time they are being added to the list. Sometimes, I just want to confirm the year the record was released or see if I have an original pressing or a reissue, and I'll end up finding out all kinds of other interesting bits of info about the records and bands. Anyway, nice blog and article. Have a good day .. and keep on listin'!
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If you're using a Mac, you might want to give Bento a spin.
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Thanks for the info. I didn't know about Bento, but am planning on looking into it now.
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Dear Paul. Great article. I started with a spreadsheet too. Then I think it would be great to use a database software to track my collections. So I tried from one software to another in search for a perfect collection software. Nothing really satisfies me, I even designed my own.
But after my collection grows, I switched back to spreadsheet. It's simple and suits me just fine. What is the point of collecting anyway?
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Thanks for your kind words, Yudha.
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Isn't that your question? I quoted it for myself. That's what make your article great, it's not just bla bla bla how to. It makes me think, contemplating to find the answer.
Why? I don't know. Maybe it's in our genes, perhaps printed in our DNA. That's why we have museums and libraries (I consider myself a librarian for my personal library). My temporary answer : to gather, accumulate, preserve knowledge for present and future references.
In my case, I collect records to listen to music and as reference how to make good music. So I keep organizing things as simple as possible and spend my time enjoying my collections.
What do you think?
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