Album Storage

For classical - I like to arrange them chronologically by the year of the composer's birth . . . then within each composer I arrange in order of increasing ensemble size. Then there are a few extra small sections for related stuff . . . i.e. all the renaissance choral compilations, all of the electronic/electro-acoustic stuff, all of the albums that feature a performer more than a composer, etc. etc.

I like the end result to generally group similar stuff together, and to be interesting and relaxing to browse through. Alphabetical is stressfull . . . best reserved for filing bills and such.

Hi Kirkus, I'll bet your organization scheme does nicely promote browsing through the collection. My alphabetical approach certainly does not lend itself to browsing through similar musical material. I've thought from time to time about reorganizing around time period and genre to better enable casual browsing, but I think the collection is too far gone to change now. Still, it sounds like a user-friendly organizational scheme to consider.
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By special groups of interest:

Avant-Classical, Avant-Jazz, Avant-Rock..etc.

I worked in a record store for 5 years in the late 90's and here were the breakdowns:

LPs:
Rock (basically 50's to mid 80's)
Metal (always an argument whether to put Sabbath in here or rock)
Alternative/Punk (all punk/new wave/alternative/indie)
Soul (R&B...I hated this term)
Country
Jazz
Blues
Comedy
Classical
Avant/Noise
Industrial
12" singles (techno, dance, house, etc.)
Misc. Gems (spoken word, crazy religious records, and foreign recordings...they may have created a world music section now).
7" (avant/punk&alt/rock/country)

I won't bore you with the CDs but they were similar but heavily weighted towards alternative and punk. We also had a large used section which was alphabetical by artist.

There were artists that always posed problems due to genre and name. Ex: where to you put Reverend Horton Heat? Anyway, it was fun times.

There are a number of excellent software programs available for storing playback media. I use CD Trustee that stores CDs & LPs. I can create scores of print outs using many differing criteria. For a quick look , view www.base40.com. Some of the reviewers @ Stereophile use this program , but as stated many others abound some with optional bar-code scaners that that makes storage / cataloging a breeze.