Storing Records In Some Kind Of Organised Way!

Storing records in some kind of organised way!

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to sort out my various collections of records into some kind of organised coherent order. It seems to be a rather difficult task once one has accumulated more than a small number of records! I haven't any real idea how many 12 inch records I now have, but at a guess I'd say somewhere near to several hundred, if not more. Mmmmm, organised storage gets to be a problem especially if done properly (records stored vertically). I have a number of large plastic storage containers that do the job ok, but even they can hold only 'so many' records. What about musical genre? Another problem! At the moment I have three separate collections of records that more or less comprise specific music material, but it is hard to avoid occasional 'overlapping'. Sometimes one just has to look through entire collections when one wants to a look for a particular album. In the end, it is a hard reality that records (and their covers) take up appreciable space!

What prompted this sudden flurry of activity this afternoon was a desire to find a Kate Cerebrano Jazz album that I knew I had 'somewhere' but it had been a long while since I had actually seen it. Well I did find it eventually and whilst I looked for it I did reorganise and neaten up quite a bit of my various record collections, even to the point of placing somehow 'separated' records and their covers back together! For a few reasons, quite a few of my record collection have no cover, however all records have sleeves, so at least there is some protection for the precious vinyl. At least being contained in this house, temperatures are not excessive (except in summer!) and warped records the unfortunate result of excessively high temperature storage should never happen again, unlike earlier days when careless storage in hot cars destroyed many of my prized record albums through severe warping!

Just rummaging through my records today I found some really excellent material that I'd already forgotten about although the records were only obtained relatively recently! How quickly one forgets! The Kate Cerebrano album has been earmarked for 'play' at the earliest opportunity. She's an amazing Australian talent with a voice that can handle everything from pop to ballads and Jazz and probably more besides, but I digress! It would be interesting to see how others handle the issue of record storage, and I dare say others are probably much better organised than I am!

Back in the 1970's, I seem to recall one that of popular 'gadget' companies here in Australia of the time marketed an interesting storage device for records. With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have purchased a few of them way back then! It is interesting that although it is well known and appreciated that records should be stored 'vertically', many well meaning storage systems don't! I well recall that many, many years ago our family's 'furniture style' stereogram contained a storage compartment for records, where it was clearly intended that the records be laid flat horizontally for storage! Better than nothing, I suppose!

The number of records I've acquired in recent years has alarmed at least one person in this household who frequently complains about me having 'too many records'. Too many records? Really? Never! Strangely enough she enjoys listening to my records more than I do. That's interesting isn't it! Perhaps she has a point though. They do take up space, yes that's a fact. After lunch today I was listening to a delightful John Williams Spanish guitar album and I found myself wishing for 'longer' sides. Perhaps this is one perceived advantage of the CD format with around 70 minutes of music space available. One side of a vinyl record contains a lot less music than that but I guess they did the best they could when the standards for the 12 inch record revolving at 331/3 RPM was first worked out. Things could be worse I guess, 78 RPM 'records' had even less playing time! Well I'm not complaining too much!

Well after I upload this latest blog entry I'm off for a night time shower, then I think I'll go and listen to Kate Cerebrano and her band on the 'record player' in my spare room vinyl playing system. Yes, that sounds like a nice way to wind down after another busy day. More to come! Felix.