Best way to categorize your Vinyl collection

I might ad that what I mean about "categorizing" is putting them in groups and affixing a label with Lg letters on my rack...

I finally [after 5 moves had totally mixed them] got mine in order. Piano music in one section, symphonies in another, organ, rock, folk. jazz etc. I can find things now but I don't know if anyone else could. These are my LPs, my CDs are still in a mess but I have many fewer of them. [2-300 vs 3000]

Becides categorizing I have separate shelves for Frank Zappa, German progressive rock, David Sylvian/Japan and band members solo albums... Within Jazz there's a large collection of ECM and its sublabels suchas Watt.

anyone know where I can get some album "tabs" to put between the categories or alphabatize as they do in the record stores?

I have been trying to find these for a long time.

by artist's geography..LA, SF, Seattle, etc

Mine are a jumbled lot. I only have around a thousand, so I can guess fairly close as to the location. But during the search I'll find many I have overlooked and they will get playtime. Had they been organised, I feel they would still be in that no-look zone and forgotten. In the past couple of months I have picked up around 150-160 more, and they will be placed on the shelf as I got them, in no order.

Macdadtexas,
Check Bags Unlimited for the album tabs. They have a website

I have about 6,000 LPs.
I have three main groupings:
Classical 2,000, Jazz 1,800, Rock 2,200.
In Classical I have all the operas on the top shelf in composer order. (6 shelves high up). The Classical has the most complicated sort: By Composer: then sonata, duo, trio etc up to symphony, with choral last. Withing each the sequence is in ascending order by oldest first, then if I have say 8 Beethoven's Sixth Symphony: by the last name of the conductor. or main artist.
In Rock I have all the 'Jazz' singers, and odd old stuff on the bottom shelf. The rest is in Artist/Group alpha order, then each group I 'try' to keep then in oldest first etc. (am don't like much 'Jazz' singing, so I keep those over in the 'rock/pop' section, along with New Age.
Jazz is all alpha by primary artist or group, then by date created, with oldest first.
As for the 'other' way to look at the question: I try to dump stuff that is less than top stuff, either as to quality of the vinyl, or the performance.
Having constantly weeded the stuff I can say the vast majority of my stuff is VG++ to NM and all highly rated by critics.
The vast majority of my LPs were purchased used, locally.

Years ago I gave up on using some alpha filing scheme and went to a numerical approach and a computerized data base (collectorz.com} that is used with a bar scanner. Still cataloging but hopefully will finish late next year. I'm often surprised on the duplicates in the collection. Works well for CD's but still have not found an easy way to do the the vinyl.

Thx, I will look into that

Thankfully, I don't have too many records (yet). Since the arrival of my RCM I've bought a new rack and only cleaned records go in it. This has prompted me to incorporate a new filing system - which since I now only play clean vinyl - helps me re-think my ordering system. This new rack is my "go to" rack. I've always had a go-to spot as well as newly purchased spot, with the rest of my collection stored in two different racks via alpha filing systems. One rack containing old LPs that I've had for 40 years and I bought as a kid and the other rack containing new music (indie labels et al).

I'm slowly moving away from that and into a genre-based audiophile only (they have to sound very good to get put on this shelf) system: 1) Favorites (Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt/Jay Farrar/Wilco), 2) Indie, 3) Minimal male vocals (aka acoustic), 4) Classic Rock, 5) Punk, 6) Female Vocals (folk/folk-rock), 7) Ambient/Electronic

So far I've only cleaned 54 of 1200+ LPs so this system is easily referenced and organized, but expanding. The above groupings will stay with additional racks added as needed to accommodate the genres (aka moods). Blues, jazz and classical will eventually get their own section too but it's been a couple of months with my RCM and I have yet to clean any.

This is a long winded way of saying I categorize by genre/mood.

I don't need labels or dividers to tell me where everything is because I'm very intimidate with my collection sections - visited daily with the most recent played on the right going left.

I like that notec.....I might incorporate some of your Ideas... Thanks!

Collecting dust at the moment, since recently having sold off two TT's and cartridges while on the lurk for the next TT....but I've new toyz to keep me busy in the meantime...speakers and a new jazz guitar...what a way to wait!

Autobiographical