How do YOU organize your iTunes library?

I use J River. You can create your own fields and index on any combination of fields (standard and user-created) one wants to. Even with 70K files, it's quick to navigate from any angle you choose. It's also easy to set up a playlist on the fly very easily, so I don't do a lot of playlist setup.

I can't imagine any setup that would require 45 seconds to look up a specific album.

Using the browser doesn't work for me either because once I find the album I want to listen to the artwork won't be there. With playlists the artwork will automatically be there.

I don't follow. Anytime I select an album to play from the browser the art work is there.

If you have the browser sorted "album by artist" all of the artists are there in alphabetical order. I don't see where having all of that duplicated by playlists is any easier, or really different for that matter.

How does having playlists by album help if you can't remember the title?

"I don't follow. Anytime I select an album to play from the browser the art work is there."

The artwork can be shown in the browser...about 2" x 2" on my 42" widescreen. My way fills up the entire screen with the album cover. I'd rather stare at a full-screen artwork shot than the iTunes interface any day.

"If you have the browser sorted "album by artist" all of the artists are there in alphabetical order. I don't see where having all of that duplicated by playlists is any easier, or really different for that matter."

It's WAY easier to navigate the playlists because when trying to scroll up and down by artist in the browser only 6 artists are shown at any given time(by default) unless you then drag the bottom half of iTunes down revealing more choices. My way shows playlists from the top of the iTunes GUI all the way down to the bottom. I easily see 40 playlists at once this way.

"How does having playlists by album help if you can't remember the title?"

Because I can type 3 letters of an artist's name that I have dozens of albums of and see all of the albums in alphabetical order...instantly.

Maybe I can make a short video of how I use iTunes to help show how this makes a whole bunch of sense to me.

"I can type 3 letters of an artist's name that I have dozens of albums of and see all of the albums in alphabetical order...instantly."

I can do that without playlists by
going to the iTunes search bar, choosing "Artist" in the pull down menu (next to the magnifying glass) and typing those same 3 letters in the iTunes box.

Once I select an album, I click on 'cover flow' view, and then go to the View menu and select "Full Screen".

When I want to view my playlists, I don't have 300-3000 playlists of albums to sort through, only a few dozen unique playlists that are themes or smart playlists.

To each his own.

With 450 GB of Lossless music and 4 years with iTunes under my belt I still have only made 3 playlists. Its just not how I listen. Coverflow, to me, is not useful either, especially with a large collection. I generally scroll (two finger drag) through the artists until I see one that I feel like listening to and listen to all or most of an album until I feel like something different. Occasionally, I scroll through the albums instead of artists.

When I know what I want to hear I go right to it via my artist list, it takes mere seconds. That's how I use iTunes.