keeping collection organized?????

I have my 3,000+ cds in Word, alpha list by artist's name and title of cd. Updates are relatively simple and easy to do. The printed version fits on five sheets of paper - four columns, pinted on both sides in 7pt font. It folds up nicely into my wallet and has prevented me from buying duplicate copies on several occassions over the years. If I need further information, I rely on allmusic.com for the finer details of a particular non-Indie labeled cd.

Simple yet practical.
Lou

Ozfly, the memory is the second thing to go. I forgot what was first.

Elgordo, it's probably best to have forgotten that ;-)

I've used several different programs over the years. I started with an Access database I built myself. I eventually imported that in to Spinfree Audiofile v. 4.03. Spinfree hasn't supported the product actively in a couple of years, so when Windows XP came out, using the Audiofile Internet Companion to retrieve CD info automatically became problematic. Just recently, I ported everything over to Collectorz Music Collector v. 6.1. (http://www.collectorz.com/music/)

I have been very happy with Music Collector so far. It can be relatively complicated to use if you want to delve into the more esoteric and detailed information fields, but, if you are inclined you can store everything from the basic info like title and track names to musicians, producers and engineers, where and when you bought it, the record label, etc. It's extremely detailed and easy to search. It also has an excellent lookup utility, where using either the basic disc data (retrieved from this disk automatically be inserting it in a drive), the UPS code (eithertyped in or scanned, if you have a bar code scanner), or the artist and title, it will query not only the CDDB, like most other music cataloging programs, but also the All Music Guide and Amazon.com info. Check out the website. I've been very happy with it's ability to keep track of my 1500+ CD, 2000+ CD-R, 500+ DAT collection

I use CD Trustee and it works just as advertized. Especially valuable is the automatic loading of CD titles, tracks, times and genres from Gracenote. Having used this now for several months, I would not recommend you attempt to use a spread sheet or access or word. This product is far superior and relatively inexpensive. Plus, you can down load and try it for a limited number of CDs for no charge.