Storing CDs successfully [and finding them again]

[Don Petter]

Roehre,

You're right, of course. It's a while since I dabbled (not having to do it for a living any longer ), and I'd forgotten how much overlap there is now between Access and Excel (and even, to an extent Word).

In a simpler context, I often use Excel in preference to Word in a document when there is a requirement for a lot of tabulation and columns. It seems so much easier to achieve the required layout. I find the inner workings of Word always seem to give me what it wants, rather than what I want.

[johnb]

If I was setting up a database I would initially use Excel to set up the columns (fields) and bulk enter the data. Doing the setting up of the main data tables in Excel is much easier than doing it in Access. However, I would then import the data into Access and use Access from then on.

I did start on setting up such a system but found the tedium beyond my tolerance level.

As things are, I now use Squeezebox and have converted all my CDs to FLAC files, stored on an external HDD. (I also have quite a lot of off air broadcasts in mp2/mp3/aac formats.) Once the whole lot has been scanned by the Squeezebox software there is a useful 'pug-in' that enables you to export the various database tables that Squeezebox uses. Every so often I do the export and import the data into Access.

[Ferretfancy]

Having read all the comments about storing CDs, and even more so the comments people make about their difficulties with downloading from various sites and copying on to hard disc, plus the need to download texts as well, I can't help feeling that perhaps there's something to be said for bunging the thing in the machine and just listening to it!

[vinteuil]

I can't help feeling that perhaps there's something to be said for bunging the thing in the machine and just listening to it!

sanity at last, blessed sanity. Thank you, ferretfancy!

[Don Petter]

Oh? Do they make a noise as well?

[johnb]

Listening to them?

Que?

(I'm from Barcelona)

[Roehre]

I can't help feeling that perhaps there's something to be said for bunging the thing in the machine and just listening to it!

sanity at last, blessed sanity. Thank you, ferretfancy!

Seconding Vinteuil:

[Dave2002]

Having read all the comments about storing CDs, and even more so the comments people make about their difficulties with downloading from various sites and copying on to hard disc, plus the need to download texts as well, I can't help feeling that perhaps there's something to be said for bunging the thing in the machine and just listening to it!

Ferret

I go with this last suggestion!

I'm afraid I use the chaos method .... and some CDs/DVDs don't even get put back in the right cases, which makes an even bigger challenge. Just occasionally of course, some are actually bought like that!

For those who like organisation, I suggest giving each physical object a unique number. This will be used to locate the object, and could simply be the "next available integer". Then the (virtual) record of the object which can have all the details, and be replicated ad infinitum, and categorised etc., is associated with the unique number. Retrieving the object then is a two step process. First use the database system to find the unique object number, and then find the object, which for anally retentive people should be a trivial matter, simply requiring them to scan along the objects - which are of course stored in order - to find the required item.

This doesn't work for those adopting the chaos system though, as items hardly ever get put back into their "correct" places.

The physical location problem can be improved a bit if some additional clues are built into storage location coding. For example, a 2 letter code could indicate the main composer on a CD, with a code C to indicate CD, with an integer code to follow.

Thus BR/C/257 could be the 257th CD of any compilation containing a main work by Britten, Brahms, Bridge etc.

The intention would be to use an object coding system which has the following properties -

a. It is robust enough for an object to be unlikely to ever need recoding.
b. If objects get put in the wrong place, this can be detected relatively easily, and they can then be put back where they should be in the physical storage.

Re the virtual system (database), why not use a unique key, such as the CD number, and retrieve all the relevant data from one or more online databases?

More later - if needed.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Having read all the comments about storing CDs, and even more so the comments people make about their difficulties with downloading from various sites and copying on to hard disc, plus the need to download texts as well, I can't help feeling that perhaps there's something to be said for bunging the thing in the machine and just listening to it!

Exactly. It's amazing how many people succumb to the likes of Mr Brennan and his oversized iPod. Does anyone else other than him think it takes any effort to play a CD?

[EdgeleyRob]

I use the tottering piles of CDs all over the house system mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Some are in the wrong cases and some not even in cases (especially in the car).It makes for interesting listening for example putting a Beethoven CD in the player and the sound of Jimi Hendrix coming out (which has happened !)..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I use the tottering piles of CDs all over the house system mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Some are in the wrong cases and some not even in cases (especially in the car).It makes for interesting listening for example putting a Beethoven CD in the player and the sound of Jimi Hendrix coming out (which has happened !)..

Frau Alpensinfonie does that. I still can't find my recording Rutter's Requiem, which I appreciate enough to miss it, but not enough to buy another copy.

[Ferretfancy]

Hi All!

It's nice to know that I'm not alone, but to be honest I do keep a catalogue on the Mac! I've tried a humane cull once but later regretted it.

[salymap]

I've decided to leave the little heaps of CDs as they are and not buy thatthing Imentioned in M1. Glad I'm not the only disorganised one.

[Alain Maréchal]

Like others, I gave up the idea of careful filing years ago. I have a vague idea where everything is, and if I can't find it I will find something else equally interesting. Often I find not only the desired record but something more tempting near it, so I play that instead.

There's one important point in favour of the Serendipity method: its the way we used to listen. Choices were made according to the availability of performance: if Debussy and Stravinsky were being played, that's what we heard.

[MickyD]

I too have a pretty good idea where CDs are, roughly filing them in composer alphabetical order. The trouble is that certain areas of the collection that lie behind an armchair or somesuch thing don't always get so much of an airing as the others which are on better display! When feeling energetic, I sometimes go to these more hidden places and have fun in finding things I'd forgotten I had.

On a slightly different tack, there is no doubt in my mind that though I adore buying box sets, I find I take them down from the shelves far less than individual CDs. Laziness, I suspect, or maybe the prospect of a single CD seems less daunting.