Best Ways to Organize a Classical Record LP Collection ?

I first put together label ->performing artist->title(consisting of composer and name of piece or opus). Most of my Deutsche Grammophon records start with "K" -- Kubelik, Karajan and some of them with "B" Bohm :-)

Label than a to z i have over 5 thousand.

ebm, which A to Z you sort?
If Ansermet conducts Brahms what letter will that be?

Composer, composition, Label, artist.

Opera in separate section, as does vocal centered around 1 artist

Records w/ various composers w/ 1 artist, I put in so called Collection section. So say Van Cliburn plays romantic Favorites goes under V.

Repeat works or more than 1 composition by the same artist then goes chronologically based on release date w/in the label. So-

Beethoven Symphonies -Karajan 1st cycle goes before 2nd cycle.
Or, La Boheme on Decca (London) - Mono Tebaldi goes before Stereo Tebaldi goes before Freni, Pavarotti.

I sort of agree with elee - 

I have my music divided into four groups, Orchestral, Vocal, Chamber, and solo (or two) piano music. In each group I sub-divide as needed for what ever is appropriate to me, for example  usually by composer/performer/label, but for solo piano I have two seperate sub groups, one for performers (i.e. I love Moravec so I have all of his music filed under his name) but more often filed by composer and I have them filed in the order of my personal performance preference.

To me it makes sense for you, having such a large collection to sort through, would be just to file them by composer. Then as you become more familiar with the actual recordings themselves where/how you want to file them should become evident.

What fun you should have.......:-)