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I've got several friends who sort by genre, then artist. But I kinda like seeing stuff like (pause while I glance over at the LP rack...) jazzy pianist Joanne Brackeen next to punky troubador Billy Bragg cheek-to-jowl with ol' man Brahms followed by noisemeister Glenn Branca leading into Brit bombshell Benjamin Britten followed by folky folks The Brothers Four opening for the hardest working man in my record collection, James Brown! I -do-, however, keep my "various artist" records separate, at the end of the regular albums, sorted alphabetically by album title.

I'm big on genre and whim. Whim covers the "hot" stuff I'm currently enjoying. It's filed under sofa cushions, furniture, on top of cabinets and televisions and other convenient places. Then, it gets exiled to genre in the "racks" where it is conveniently forgettable.

LPs in one cabinet, CDs in another.

By artist. Then every artist is organized with ordinary albums first, by year. Then comes collections by year and last singles by year.Last in the collection are the records that have different artists. I have slightly over 1000 cd's, so I have to have them organized.

I'm keeping every record on my mind.

Classical: alphabetical by title. Other: split into the following categories: Rock and roll Blues Soul Jazz Country Non-rock (ie popular such as Sinatra, Fitzgerald etc) Fifties pop Sixties pop/rock Seventies pop/rock Punk and after pop/rock Each category is arranged alphabetically by artist. That's the records. The pop/rock CD's are less well organised because the storage isn't so well set up. Actually there's quite a few records now that won't fir into my storage cupboards because they're full, so they're arranged haphazardly. I need a bigger house!

My music is organized by format, type of music, then by Composer/artist. I enter each purchase into a database(getting my son to do the same is a chore). Once a month I run a computer report and reorganize as required.

Got no time to sort out all my CDs. Tried to sort them out by male/female vocalists and instrumentals once long ago. But they have since got all jumbled up again. I now just keep my top 20 CDs next to the CD transport. The other 500 ( really not that many compared to most of you out there ) gather dust on the racks. When friends come by they can have fun looking for anything of interest to them. They have to wipe away all the dust, though.

It seems that I am always looking for something new to listen to. I become bored easily with mot popular artists. So, I buy something new, listen to it for a few days, then throw it in the heap.

I find that storing my CD's by four categories (Classical, Christian, Christmas, and "all other" -- I guess maybe that's what uppity folks call genre) and then alphabetically within each category works well. I can find any of my 850 or so in a few seconds. If only CWD hadn't gone out of business, I could buy more of their cubes and drawers to hold more CD's. (Hardware just ain't no good without software.)

Nothing is in order . . . Help!!

Organized? Organized what's? Everything some kind of order in, house all in my. Otherwise order no, none. Like it I way that.

With over 4500 lps and 300 CDs it would be nice to have everything categorized but who has the time to input all that data? For me it's enough that my cat no longer uses the shelf of lps within his grasp as a scratching post!

random but i can find my CD's w/o too much trouble assuming hte little doesnt have it.

What other way is there?

For tracking them via the PC (cost, date of purchase, et al), I use an ecellent program called 'Music Organizer'. However, when I elect to retreive any given CD, they are arranged alphabetically by Artist in a cabinet.

What I and many other music collectors need is a handsome, classically styled, low profile wooden cabinet with drawers that will hold 500-1000 cd cases, including the double sized variety. The cabinet should allow the owner to store the cds in the same manner as cds are displayed in most record stores - i.e., so that you can look through your collection cover by cover, rather than spine by spine. I absolutely despise the tall, thin, cheap, black plastic cd stands and holders that proliferate the market. It was okay to have one in college and when one just starts out working, but once you have a home with decent furniture, a good system and a nice music collection, you don't want to ruin everything with ugly cd stands. Plus, who wants to see hundreds of cd cases on display in their living/listening room (do you keep your dishes and cutlery displayed for guests)? At least for me, it would be better to have them neatly stored away and protected from dust and sunlight (which will fade the booklets). Price? The same as for comparable items of furniture (it is, after all, no different).

There are sub-sections of the Genre as well as alphabetically. I use the Audiofile software it works great and you can adapt to Laser Disc, DVD, LP's. You can search by any criteria you want, it's great!

CDs are ordered by record label, then by number. This is suplimented with a printed list showing number, composer, and brief title for each cd in the same order. You scan the list to find a given CD and then locate it according to its position on the list.

Generally genre. The Miles Davis shelf is by date of recording. Each other genre is by subsets of either artist or styles.

First by genre,then alphabetically by artist in chronological order. Is there any other way? This should be a no brainer people. Very stupid question.

Alphabetically by artist and them chronologically within artist.

I keep evrything in alphabetical order by artist/composer, then the year it was released. I am very anal about my collection . Everything has to be just right according to my wife. It's all true though !

I found that a couple of 200 disk changers did the trick nicely

my system? hmmm, let me see, is it on this shelf or that shelf? Is it on this room or that one? Why would anyone want to organize it? The time spent doing so would be time that could be used listening, plus part of the enjoyment of a big collection is the surprises when something pops up: "Yikes, I haven't listened to this for awhile"

But as the collection grows it becomes more difficult to physically maintain the collection in order

I have a nice, well organized case for storing my CD's. Probably a waste of money since I find all my CD's eventualy end up stacked by my CD player.

I also have my entire collection on a database on my computer. This was incrediably easy using a shareware program called DiscPlay. You merely connect to the internet, put your CD's into the computer CD tray and like magic, all the information about your CD is permanently stored in a database on your computer. It took me about 2 days to catalog over 1600 CD's. This includes all the artist information, song titles, label names, type of music, etc. It makes a great copy for any insurance related claims!

Alphabetically by artist, but chronologically by issue date within artist.

Categorized by genre and alpabetized by composer within the genre, with compliations grouped together at front before the letter "A".