Cataloging Question

Alphabetical order is good, but not really great for me. I don't want to look for Bryan Ferry knowing I can find his stuff in the Roxy music section also I don't want to look for just Chick Corea. I want to look first in the Jazz section that I have. My catalog is over 6000 records.

 I would put it under “R” —  but if I thought there was a likelihood of confusion, I would put an index card in the appropriate place with a cross reference to other locations. Yes, you could call me anal, but it works. 

Go to the Library Of Congress' website and see how they catalog their albums? (Probably cross referenced six ways to Sunday). That way if you forget where something is you'll at least have a reference to help you sort it out. And yes, I have been known to overthink things sometimes. LOL

Absolutely filing my music in alphabetical order would drive me nuts. I have vinyl, CD’s, cassettes, and then there are my ripped files. All are first categorized by music genre, i.e. classical, jazz, alternative, indie, rock, fusion, pop, etc (including my ripped/flac files). I don’t want my Beethoven intermingled with my Beatles.

After that, I don’t even file alphabetically, example, I have all my classical music primarily divided by orchestras, or others by conductors. Or, as example, I have 4-5 complete Beethoven cycles, they all go together no mater the orchestra or conductors. Same for my Mozart cycles. Then for soloists like Heifetz, they all go together.

Similar for my ‘rock’. All my Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, etc all go together, as example. Same with all my Beatles, George Harrison, John Lennon, and McCartney. My Todd Rundgren and Utopia go together, and Eric Clapton, Cream, Derek and the Dominos, Blind Faith, etc are all together. Fairport Convention goes with all my other ‘folk rock’ stuff. John Mayhall is on an island by himself, but close to my Clapton stuff because of the Bluesbreakers ;-)

And I do that for all my source types. Sounds confusing, but have been doing this for over 45 years now, so I guess I have gotten used to it, and can usually go right to what I want to listen to.

I put mine under R.