Record Storage - Categorizing, Labeling, Discogs and All That Fun Stuff

When I buy a new record, the first thing I do is clean it, and take the record out of the custom inner sleeve, if there is one, and put it in a new white paper inner sleeve. Then I put the LP jacket and the record in its new white paper sleeve in a new plastic sleeve, with the record stored outside of the LP jacket. The records are stored vertically in hardwood record crates. My main concern is preventing ringwear, and also preventing seam splits to original custom inner sleeves. I don’t really buy the notion that storing the records this way causes the jackets to collapse, although I can sort of see the reasoning behind that argument.

 

Databasing on its' own, is a fun, geeky, anal-retentive pleasure to do. It helps you get a handle on what you really have, and become more aware of what you need, and/or why.

What Discogs adds to the effort of course, is the option to dump all your information into their free-market hands, and turns them into both an online record retail source, and you into a small-time music "store", with the option - and almost the guilt-driven incentive - to buy-into their business model. After all, once you've "done all their work for them", it almost seems pointless not to go the rest of the way, right?

But then - or, now - they're making it so hard for you to benefit from your own efforts, due to their increased shipping restrictions, as well as turning you into one of thousands of small-time "dealers" competing against one another for deals, or something to justify all the effort you put into what was originally, just a way to keep your own collection organized...they are crowdsourcing the futility of their own business model. Now it stands to become "no fun for you anymore", "not easy to keep abreast of their requirements anymore", and eventually, "a waste of your time, in service to somebody else's benefit".

Not that I am opposed to using the Discogs interface for the intent originally one is attracted to it for...it's just that, it's becoming apparent that the carrot you jump for...is almost not worth the stick that's on the back-end for the user itself. I'd almost rather take the geeky challenge of writing my own custom database for my own personal (and personalized) goals...rather than to get sucked into somebody else's marketing plan with an innocent benefit on the front-end.

 

Excel and Avery envelope labels on Vinyl Fever Covers.

Example of label:

Deep Purple
Machine Head
Warner Bros, 1972 (CTH)
Dad, September 1988

 

That's hilarious. What do you do in your less spontaneous moments?

 

I moved cross country last year. The biggest problem with my collection is that it keeps on growing. I had commissioned a custom wood cabinet for LPs and used it for 7 years, but eventually outgrew it. I work in the architecture industry and modularity is a huge issue in buildings, so I applied it to my moving and storing process. I bought 15 milk crates to protect my collection for the move. Initially I was planning on repurposing them after we arrived, but when I saw how well the weathered the trip, I decided to keep them to permanently store my collection.

The first thing I discovered is that while they may stack well when the opening is on top, once the opening gets put on one side, they become extremely unstable, even these crates that were specifically designed to stack up and on the side. After some serious zip-tie reinforcement, along with some steel poles on the inside, I finally have a system that is expandable and makes all the LPs accessible.

This was also an excellent time to update my collection on Discogs, which I had not done in 8 years. I have almost 800 LPs now. Whew!